


A Game of Honesty

by Lomonaaeren



Series: From Litha to Lammas [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Background Bill Weasley/Other(s), Background Fleur Delacour/Other(s), Background Ginny Weasley/Astoria Greengrass, Background. Draco Malfoy/Astoria Greengrass, Consensual Infidelity, F/F, F/M, Hot Mess, M/M, Manipulation, Polyamory, undernegotiated polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-06-30
Packaged: 2020-05-18 22:39:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 29,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19344112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lomonaaeren/pseuds/Lomonaaeren
Summary: Harry had agreed to an open marriage because he loved Ginny too much to lose her. But he struggled every day with jealousy of Ginny’s bond to Astoria Greengrass. He knew that Ginny was the opposite, and had encouraged him to find a lover of his own, but Harry only wanted his wife. At least, he thought so until Draco Malfoy offered an arrangement of their own that would have the advantage of making their wives pay more attention to them, and suddenly Harry is feeling, and watching everyone else feel, emotions of an intensity he never knew existed.





	1. Lit Fires

**Author's Note:**

> One of my “From Litha to Lammas” fics, and one of the longest; it will be posted in seven parts. Please look at the tags. This is not a happy fic for vast stretches of the story, and is full of people doing things they shouldn’t.

****“Potter? I need to talk to you.”

Harry took a wary step back as he watched Malfoy hesitate on his threshold. “Are you looking for Astoria? She’s not here.”

“No, I came to talk to _you_.” Malfoy still had that prissy little edge to his voice when he was annoyed. He walked into Harry’s house as if he had never hesitated and turned around, leaning against the mantel with his arms folded. “And I know my wife and _your_ wife are frolicking around Diagon Alley this afternoon.”

Harry shut the door. “Don’t remind me.” That sounded more bitter than he meant it to, so he rushed to make up for it. “What do you want to drink, Malfoy? We have water, Firewhisky, pumpkin juice, Muggle milk that we ended up with for some bloody reason—”

“Why did you agree to this arrangement if you hate it so much, Potter?”

Luckily, that was something Harry had a ready answer for it. Ron and Hermione had questioned it a lot when he and Ginny made their rules, too. “It was that or lose our marriage. Ginny needed more than me. I love her too much to lose her.” Saying those words didn’t even hurt much, now. “Now, Malfoy, you never told me what you wanted to drink.”

“But rumor has it that Perfect Potter never steps out on _his_ marriage.”

“Wouldn’t be stepping out when Ginny and I have rules. To drink?”

“You have drinking rules, too? Aren’t you _thorough_.”

“If you want to talk to your wife or Ginny about this, then you should talk to them.” Harry kept his voice steady despite his increasing longing to punch Malfoy in his pointy chin. “If you want to talk to me about something, what it is? Although I can’t imagine what we have in common.”

“Let’s say, common dislike of our common arrangements.”

Harry gritted his teeth so his jaw wouldn’t drop. “What the _fuck_ , Malfoy? Why did you agree to _yours_?”

“Because it’s so unlikely that _I_ could have been in love? Love is only for Gryffindors?”

Harry settled back on his heels and nodded shortly. “Fine. But if you dislike it, then you should talk to your wife about changing it.” He _had_ talked to Ginny, but it was so clear that she needed more than he could offer—more excitement and passion and even time, given the long hours that Harry worked as an Auror. And if he was jealous of Astoria anyway, that was petty and immature of him. He could at least hold off on voicing it to Ginny.

“She’s been more than unreasonable, at least by my standards. She says that someday she’ll have children with me, but for now, she wants to be in love and have fun.”

“She’s not in love with you? I’m sorry, Malfoy.” That was something Harry didn’t have to worry about with Ginny. She had explained that she simply was fashioned by magic to love more than one person at a time.

“No, she’s not.” Malfoy took a deep breath and finally moved into the kitchen, to sit down at the table. Harry followed after him and got butterbeer for himself, since Malfoy persisted in not saying he wanted anything. “Listen. I’ve had a few lovers, and when I did, Astoria was jealous.”

Harry blinked. “Why?”

“Because she doesn’t want to lose the house and the wealth and the position and the marriage, even if she doesn’t give a fuck about me. She wants an unequal arrangement. I have no intention of giving it to her. I want to do something that will persuade her to abandon the arrangement because she’s in danger of losing me.”

“Okay,” Harry said slowly. “But why tell me this?”

“Merlin, you’re thick, Potter. I want you to become my lover.”

Harry choked and put his butterbeer down. “No.”

“Astoria and I have the same rules that you and Weasley do, from what I hear. No bearing or siring children with other people, no sex that would expose anybody to a disease, and discretion. In practice, that’s more likely to mean a same-sex lover. I’ve had a few, men all. It would be perfect for you, too. Can your Weasley stand seeing you with another man? Stir her jealousy, and she’s more likely to start paying attention to you.”

Harry shook his head. “Thanks but no thanks, Malfoy. I hope you and Greengrass work out what you need to do. I won’t be part of this.” He stood and used his wand to flick the door open.

Malfoy didn’t stand up. “Think about it, Potter. I doubt your Weasley is actually as unbiased and welcoming as she’s pretending. Unlike Astoria, she probably does love you. But she’s never had to face the challenge of watching you be affectionate with someone else, which is the only reason she can pretend to be that way. Give her the idea she’ll lose you, and she’ll come running home. Probably even agree to stop seeing Astoria, if you want her to.”

Harry hated how tempting that was. He hated what it said about him. But he had got better at facing what was sordid in himself. He let Malfoy’s words pass him like a wind, and gestured towards the door with his wand.

Malfoy studied his face for a second, then stood and sighed. “This would have been so much simpler if you’d agreed to what I wanted immediately.”

Harry laughed, back on secure ground now. “So what are you going to do, Malfoy? Spread rumors that we’re already sleeping together? That won’t get you anything you want.”

“No, it won’t. Especially since the target of the rumors wouldn’t be our wives.” Malfoy took a step towards him, but stopped when Harry twisted to the side, into a dueling stance. “Not only thick, but also paranoid.”

Harry shrugged without moving. Malfoy wanted to cause trouble, or wanted to spite Astoria since he couldn’t get her to love him, or something similar. It was none of Harry’s business. “Get out.”

Malfoy raised his hands and took a step backwards out of the door. Creepily, he did it without taking his eyes from Harry. “You’ll see. It _would_ have been simpler.”

Harry didn’t move until Malfoy was on the other end of the door and he could safely shut and lock it. Then he rolled his eyes and went to finish his butterbeer.

*

“I would feel so much better if you would take a lover, Harry.”

Harry closed his eyes and said nothing. His arms were wrapped around Ginny. Her sweaty hair was draped across his face, and he had been memorizing every strand. They had just made love, and joy had filled Harry like shining fire.

At the moment, the last thing he wanted was to let that fire turn to oily smoke and cloud his mind again.

“I _would_.” Ginny propped herself up on an elbow and stared at him earnestly. Harry opened his eyes because he could feel the force of that stare and knew she would want him to, but damn it. Did they have to talk about this _now_?

And if he said that, he would sound like he was whinging. Ginny really was the more mature one in their relationship. Harry rolled to the side to indicate he was listening.

Ginny’s face grew soft, and she reached out to trail her fingertips over the stubble that Harry hadn’t bothered to shave that evening. She’d been waiting when he got home, and that was enough to overcome everything else. “I just want you to feel what I do, Harry. I get more sex, more companionship, more _love_ from two people instead of one. I just want you to have that.”

Harry shook his head a little. “I’m too straight and too monogamous for that, Gin.”

“But _why_?”

“I’m not attracted to men at all. And I can only sleep with people I love.”

Ginny looked down at the cover of the blanket, tracing it with one finger. Harry looked at them with her. Molly had made those looping patterns, purple and blue curlicues, dancing leaves and loose-limbed trees.

Molly had no idea whose bodies had touched those lines besides Harry’s and Ginny’s.

Harry jerked his eyes away as if burned, and found Ginny watching him again. She shook her head a little, as if she wanting to get rid of her own pensiveness, and said softly, “I just worry about you, Harry. What would happen if we _did_ fall out of love someday, you and I? You wouldn’t have anyone to catch you.”

“I’d have Ron and Hermione,” Harry said, his whole soul caught around those words. “And what are you saying, Ginny? You’re falling out of love with me?” Those last words were so stuck, and Ginny’s face softened as she reached out to caress his cheek.

“Of course not, Harry. I’m just saying that it _could_ happen. I would feel better if you had someone to take care of you then.”

Harry closed his eyes. It was pathetic, the way that his last words had emerged in a whine. He didn’t—he didn’t want to be that pathetic person. And he didn’t want to be the man who made Ginny worry.

Maybe he could just try to socialize with his fellow Aurors more? Get some new, casual friends? Then Ginny might worry about him less.

He opened his eyes to suggest that just as she said softly, “I want you to know the security of sleeping with someone else, feeling a second pair of loving arms close around you. That’s all.”

Harry had to close his eyes again and abandon the conversation in what he knew was a cowardly way, so that both pain and guilt struck inside him like twin clock pendulums. Ginny was so much wiser than he was, so much further along the path towards a place where she didn’t feel jealousy anymore. She was a better person than he was in every way.

But he didn’t think he could do this, even to make her happy.

*

“Astoria told me about what your wife suggested.”

Harry didn’t even start when Malfoy appeared at his table in the Leaky Cauldron. It had been that kind of week. All his startle reflexes had gone into surviving a surprise assassination attempt from a Dark wizard and then working through a complicated maze of wards around a suspect’s house.

And all the pain from Ginny’s request had made him unable to hold any other kind of pain. Harry shrugged at Malfoy and drank his butterbeer, staring at the front of the pub. He wanted Firewhisky, but he knew he couldn’t handle it. Not this way. He would drink two, and somehow two would multiply to five.

_Another sign of how weak you are._

Malfoy leaned towards him. “Did you even hear me, Potter?”

“Yeah. What of it, Malfoy? She suggested it. It’s impossible.” Harry swallowed the last of his butterbeer and contemplated standing up and leaving. He didn’t want to miss precious time with Ginny. She’d said she would be home at nine tonight, and it was almost nine now.

Malfoy reached out and put a hand on his wrist. Harry stared at it briefly. All of the Aurors he worked with knew to take their hands away when he did that, but Malfoy only tightened his hold.

“That person you have security and companionship with could be me.”

Harry reached out and squeezed Malfoy’s arm back. Malfoy’s face rapidly lost color, and he flinched as Harry pressed tendon to bone. He also let go of Harry, which was the only thing Harry wanted. He stood up and walked rapidly towards the door, his eyes averted.

Malfoy followed him into the alley behind the pub, towards the Apparition point that Harry had already been planning to use. “I don’t understand why you object to the idea so much, Potter. We already have a connection of a sort through our wives, and you know that we have similar rules. You won’t have to worry about being with someone who would try to betray you or reveal the truth to the papers.”

Harry stopped and closed his eyes. His anger was boiling so close to the surface that it honestly felt as if he was full of scalding fury that would burst out on someone any second. This wasn’t how he wanted to go home to Ginny. He had to pause, just for a moment, just an undisturbed moment to get his temper back under control and—

“Are you scared, Potter?”

Harry kicked, once, precisely, behind him, and heard Malfoy gasp as his leg popped. Then Harry turned around and forced Malfoy into the small dark alley, holding him against the wall with his hands on Malfoy’s shoulders. The other man gaped at him.

“ _Fuck off_ , Malfoy,” Harry said. Malfoy just kept staring, and Harry released him and turned away. Only then did he realize those first two words had been in Parseltongue, not English.

 _Fuck. Fuck._ Harry wasn’t fit company for anyone right now. His temper _really_ slipped when the serpent language started to emerge from his lips. He spun on the spot and Apparated, but not home.

A heavy weight seemed to drag at him, and when he opened his eyes in the field near the Burrow, Harry realized that Malfoy had grabbed him and been Apparated next to him. Harry reached out, honestly meaning to break fingers this time, but Malfoy seemed to sense the difference and stood up, scrambling away with his hands raised.

“Get the fuck away from me,” Harry said, low, deadly, and as precise as the kick that had hurt Malfoy earlier.

“Merlin, you’re _magnificent_ like this.”

Harry snarled at him, a wordless noise of pain and despair more than anger this time. His magic had risen to the surface, and the grass around him was sizzling, slowly burning. It was disgusting, his loss of control. Harry closed his eyes and breathed out, reaching for that moment of peace Malfoy had deprived him of earlier.

He found it. When he looked at Malfoy again, the dangerous moment of magic was under control. The ludicrous thing was that Malfoy looked disappointed.

Harry just shook his head. He wasn’t going to be accommodating Malfoy’s desires in any way. “I told you _no_. Do you also find it magnificent when you’re trying to rape someone?”

Malfoy recoiled, his head jerking. _Good_. “I would never—”

“Then be good enough to accept a fucking _no_.”

“You’re clearly miserable,” Malfoy said, one hand on the side of his knee. Why he hadn’t just Apparated yet, Harry didn’t know, but then, not much Malfoy had done in the last two times Harry saw him made sense. “Why didn’t you tell your wife that you didn’t want this arrangement?”

“Why didn’t _you_?”

“I want her to be the one to say we should end it.”

Harry had to roll his eyes. Of course it would be something that petty and that personal. “I knew Ginny would leave the marriage if I said I didn’t want it.”

“She said that, then? And you didn’t call her bluff?”

“I—no, she never said it. She just said that she would be so unhappy without this, that she was born to love more than one person at a time—”

Harry stopped. He had never realized before that that was more an assumption on his part than something Ginny had demanded. Of course, the only people he had discussed this with before were all related to Ginny by blood or marriage. And they didn’t want to really hear the details of Harry and Ginny’s sex lives, and they wanted _both_ of them to be happy. Harry had insisted he was happy to be giving Ginny what she needed, so why should they have pressed?

“Then you should have called her bluff.” Malfoy’s voice was soft and firm, “Told her that you couldn’t be happy that way and seen what she did.”

“I’m still sure she would have left.”

“This doesn’t cost you anything you value, then, does it?” Malfoy gestured between them as if he was skidding his hand down an invisible wall. “You and I can be together and she’ll probably even be pleased.”

Harry closed his eyes. That was too close to what Ginny had said to him a few nights ago.

“There’s still a problem with that, Malfoy,” he said, keeping his voice as calm and neutral as he could. “Ginny’s bisexual, which is why it isn’t a problem for her to sleep with women. I’m straight. I can’t be with you the way you seem to want.”

“I want to annoy Astoria. But in the end, it isn’t about love, is it, Potter? This is about sex. For me, also annoying my wife. For you, also pleasing yours.”

Harry shook his head without opening his eyes. “That doesn’t make me any less straight, Malfoy.”

“How many people have you actually been with? Have you ever tried it with a bloke?”

Malfoy’s voice was low, and Harry jerked out of the world of darkness consuming him when he realized Malfoy had moved closer. He stood right in front of Harry, eyes locked on his. He made no move to touch Harry, though Harry thought that was as much a manipulation as anything else.

“That’s none of your business.”

“I’m curious. And I’ve already helped you to one revelation, that your supposedly fickle wife never actually said she would leave you. Indulge me now.”

Harry lifted his chin. Now that he thought about it, why shouldn’t he say it? It wasn’t as though he was ashamed of it. “I’ve only been with Ginny.”

Malfoy’s smile was a secret thing, welling up like dark water from underground. “I thought so.” And without explaining what _he_ was doing, he reached out and slid his fingers up Harry’s arm.

Harry caught his breath sharply. Tingles raced up his arm in the wake of Malfoy’s hand. For one moment, it was as though someone other than Ginny _could_ arouse him—

And then Harry knew what had happened, and snorted. “Did you think I wouldn’t notice that you’d put a spell on your hands, Malfoy?”

“What? I didn’t _use_ a spell!”

Malfoy sounded truly indignant, but Harry didn’t have to stay and listen to that with someone who undoubtedly had his own motives for trying to get Harry into bed. They had to do with Astoria, Harry knew that much, and maybe also with Ginny, if Malfoy was continuing the old feud between the Malfoys and the Weasleys, and maybe he wanted to humiliate Harry.

“Yes, you did,” Harry said, and shook his head. “I don’t have time for this. I shouldn’t have stayed so long.”

He Apparated, this time making sure Malfoy couldn’t grasp his arm to come along, guilt already churning in his head for having spent so much useless time with Malfoy when he could have been home to see Ginny minutes ago.

*

“Draco came and talked to me, Harry.”

Harry closed his eyes. He’d been sitting in front of the fire with Ginny, brushing her hair. Almost everything had gone away while he did that, everything but the warmth around him and the shine of the strands of her hair that were brighter than the fire. He didn’t want to have everything brought back again so abruptly.

But he was the one who had listened to Malfoy enough to invite this confidence, so he nodded. “What did he say?” he murmured, moving the brush over a little so that he could separate a few strands of her hair trying to form a knot.

“He said that he’d been feeling a bit left out lately with Astoria having me but him having no regular relationship. And he said he thought you were probably feeling the same way.”

Harry snarled in spite of himself, and Ginny pulled abruptly away. “ _Ouch_. Harry!”

Harry opened his eyes and found that he had caught Ginny’s hair in a tangle in the brush. “Sorry.”

“See, to me that just makes what he said sound more sensible.” Ginny settled cautiously back against him, shooting one distrustful glance over her shoulder that cut Harry harder than anything Malfoy could say. “He said that you’re tense and not getting enough sex. Not enjoying enough attention.”

“I get _plenty_ of fucking attention from the _Prophet_ and people at work!”

“That can’t be true, or you wouldn’t cling to me the way you do when I come home.”

“I—I don’t want their attention, Ginny’s. Or Malfoy’s. I want yours.”

Harry had to fight to keep his voice steady, but he must have succeeded, because Ginny simply patted his arm. “I know, but when I’m busy with Astoria, I don’t want to leave you by yourself. Malfoy is volunteering to give you that attention.”

Harry had to close his eyes again, and steady his hands as he moved the brush through her hair the way he’d had to steady his voice. It still felt as if he was bleeding under his robes.

But that didn’t matter. He _wouldn’t let it matter._ He opened his eyes and took a slow breath. “You want me to be Malfoy’s lover, Gin?”

Ginny glanced over her shoulder, her smile so gentle that it was worse. “I don’t mean just him in particular, Harry. You could choose someone else and I would approve.” Her voice was teasing, and she glided her hand up and down his arm. It felt ten times more intense than it had when Malfoy did it the other day. “But Malfoy is the one who’s offering to give you the attention, and we know that he understands what it’s like because he’s with Astoria. So I think you should go for it.”

If she had sounded even a bit uncertain, Harry would have held back. But her voice was warm and firm, and he nodded. “Okay.”

The rest of the evening, it felt as though a third figure was with them, sitting next to the fire and walking up the stairs with them and lying down beside Harry in the bed. It wasn’t Astoria, although Ginny chattered freely about her—she said it was such a relief to know that Harry was too mature for jealousy—and it wasn’t Malfoy, either.

Harry had never felt his own unhappiness that keenly before.


	2. Late Night

“Stop looking as if you’re going to your own execution, Potter. I’ll have you know that I’m a rather coveted date.”

Harry only smiled at Malfoy as best he could, and saw Malfoy check at the strained nature of it. “I’m only going out with you to make Ginny happy. You have to know that.” He glanced up and around, and wanted to snort. The whole restaurant seemed to be made of glittering, cold marble. Not his kind of place at all.

_Not your kind of marriage. Not your kind of date._

But still Harry let Malfoy take his hand and escort him towards the table in the center of all that cold whiteness, because he had promised Ginny.

"That is less than flattering," Malfoy muttered. Harry wondered if he would carry the charade far enough to pull Harry's chair out for him, but magic did that, or maybe invisible air currents. Harry sat down in his and felt the lightness as it was shoved back in. Definitely enchanted air currents. "I don't want to date someone unwilling."

Harry sighed and toyed with the glass of water that appeared in front of him, followed by a curving line of light that outlined the rapid writing of various foods. "But then you should go find someone else. Not follow me around like a puppy."

"This is not puppyish." Malfoy looked at the menu and tapped his fingers rapidly against three words, although Harry couldn't see which one. His menu sparked and disappeared, while the lines of light in front of Harry pressed insistently closer to him. "No one else would suit my requirements."

"Your requirements?"

"Irritating the hell out of Astoria."

Harry shook his head. "I don't understand that, either. She's been in favor of your having lovers before, and Ginny is in favor of this, and the only one really uncomfortable here is me. Why am I the only one who'll do?"

Instead of answering, Malfoy watched him intently. "You're really uncomfortable."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I'm straight."

"But you're here for a reason."

"I love my wife."

Malfoy sat with his head oddly cocked, as if listening to some distant word. Harry hoped it would be the one that convinced Malfoy to let him get the fuck out of the restaurant. But Malfoy looked at him and said, "Order. Then I have something I want to show you. It always takes the food a while to arrive."

Harry grimaced and leaned forwards to study the menu more intently. When he got close enough, the golden lines resolved into actual words. He sighed as he saw the prices. He and Ginny were doing well enough on an Auror and a Quidditch reporter's wages, but he didn't actually _want_ to spend lots of money. In the end, he chose a small basket of bread seasoned with several different kinds of spices, and water.

The menu dissolved. Harry settled back and looked at Malfoy. "What did you want to show me?"

Instead of answering his question like a sensible wizard, Malfoy leaned forwards in his seat and let his hand glance over Harry's arm. Harry felt gooseflesh break out as Malfoy trailed his fingers up, a heavier touch than the one he'd used on Harry the other evening.

Harry grabbed his hand and halted it, glaring. "What was _that_ supposed to prove?"

"That you're less straight than you think."

"I don't think anything's wrong with being bisexual," Harry said shortly. "That's what Ginny is, and I love her. I love everything about her. It doesn't mean I am."

Malfoy picked up what was suddenly a glass of white wine for some reason and sipped. "Why don't you tell me what you love about your wife?"

Harry eyed him, but for the moment, Malfoy seemed to have given up on his weird crusade. Harry nodded. "Sure. For one thing, I love how beautiful she is. The way her hair shines in the sun when she flies, and the way she quit trying to hide her freckles after she left Hogwarts, and how her whole face lights up when she smiles..."

Their food came, Malfoy's some kind of complicated shrimp dish that he silently took pieces from to put near Harry's bread basket. Harry rolled his eyes as he ate, but he _was_ hungry. He just wished he could erase the smug look in Malfoy's eyes at the sight of Harry eating food he'd bought.

Well, it was his funeral. He had to listen as Harry described the jokes Ginny told, and how she looked when they'd finished making love and she was lying back with one hand on the pillow, and how she'd been brave and honest enough to tell him what she needed from their marriage.

"...And she handles the whole thing well, better than I do. I agreed to let her sleep with whoever she wanted, but I'm still jealous. I know she isn't."

" _Do_ you know that, Potter?"

Harry blinked and glanced at him. Throughout the last part of the conversation, which had almost been a monologue, it had been easy to pretend he was talking to a portrait or something. And now Malfoy was calling him by his last name, as if they weren't on a date at all. "What do you mean?"

"Well, _you've_ never stepped outside her bed, right? So this will be a new experience for her, watching you date someone else. You don't know how well-controlled her jealousy is until she watches you kiss and touch me.”

"Look, Malfoy, I think we should stop pretending. I don't want to fuck you. You don't really want to fuck me. You just want to irritate your wife."

"I think there's something else you need to see," Malfoy said, and stood up, the magic drawing his chair back again. "Come with me?"

Harry sighed, drained his water glass, and stood as well. When he reached into his pocket, Malfoy waved his wand, and a stream of Galleons sprang out of his fingers, appearing like coins in a Muggle magician's. "This will be more than enough to pay for dinner," he said, staring at Harry.

Harry just shrugged and walked out of the restaurant beside him. Fine. Malfoy was the one who had asked him on this date. Therefore, by some standards, he was the one who should pay.

Malfoy held out his arm, and Harry accepted the Side-Along Apparition. He'd already accepted one to the bloody "date," so it was a little late to quibble now.

He did roll his eyes when he found himself in front of Malfoy Manor, though. "What is this? Are you going to show me your bed and hope it convinces me?"

"Not mine."

Harry shot him a curious glance, but Malfoy simply opened the wrought-iron gate--wrought with writhing dragons breathing fire, Harry saw--and gestured him through. Harry walked quietly up the white gravel pathway that glimmered in the moonlight. The dinner had lasted longer than he thought. Well, he hoped that Malfoy had got his fill of how much Harry loved Ginny.

Which wasn't ever going to change.

They entered a corridor that looked distinctly different from what Harry remembered of it, from the apricot-colored marble to the lack of portraits on the walls, but Malfoy led him up a winding staircase before Harry could really look around. Harry watched the marble change colors as they climbed. He wondered idly why Malfoy hadn't installed a lift, but perhaps he liked to stand on the stairs and gaze out over his domain.

They arrived at a door that had a tree etched in silver on it. Malfoy tilted it open a slow few centimeters, then stepped back and gestured.

Harry leaned in, wondering if he would see the edge of a treasure hoard, and how long it would take Malfoy to realize that wouldn't convince him, either.

Instead, he saw Ginny and Astoria Malfoy lying in a bed as big as Harry and Ginny's twice over, their hands resting on each other's shoulders. There was an expression of wonder on Ginny's face as she gazed at Astoria.

Her lips were moving as they talked, but Harry didn't listen to what they said. It could have been about when the price of Firebolts would finally come down, for all he knew. He just jerked back, his eyes averted, his heart painfully pounding.

There had been an expression of love on Ginny's face that he'd thought was only for him.

Malfoy spoke to him, but Harry heard the voice as being distant, underwater. He stared at the far wall and said nothing. He couldn't, not when the thoughts were dancing around his head-- _you knew she was built to love more than one person, why is this a shock, why did you come here, this was a betrayal, this is her betrayal--_ and he started when a hand came to rest on his shoulder.

"Shit, Potter, I didn't know you'd take it that hard," Malfoy muttered, and nudged him back towards the stairs. "Come on. The elves have all the Firewhisky we could want, and anything else you can think of to drink."

Harry would have fallen down the stairs if not for the railing. He had to stop and close his eyes when they were probably only halfway. The thoughts just swept back and forth in his head like wings opening and closing.

He had _agreed_ to this, that was the thing. He had no right to be upset and betrayed now. Ginny hadn't said that she was just going to have sex with other people outside the marriage, and she hadn't said that her bond to Astoria was just sex for a long time now. She had said she was in love. She had said, when they first negotiated this agreement, that she was built to fall in love with more than one person. If anyone had been lying to Harry, it was himself.

But it still hurt like someone had reached into his chest and squeezed his heart dry of blood.

"Potter?"

Harry averted his eyes from Malfoy's. He didn't think he understood the bastard's motivations as well as he'd thought. Had Malfoy _really_ only wanted to hurt him? It still didn't make a lot of sense. "I need to go home."

"Why? You're in no condition to Apparate, not with the shock you've had."

"I--I spied on Ginny. I shouldn't have. We always agreed that our time with our lovers would be strictly alone--"

"And that's bollocks." Malfoy had wrapped an arm around Harry's shoulders to guide him more firmly down the stairs. Harry hated to admit that he needed the support, but he’d tried to stand on his own, and it wasn't happening. "She's never had to keep to the agreement, has she? Because you never had a lover."

"That's my own choice." Harry's lips were numb as he spoke, and Malfoy probably didn't hear him. At least, that was the most coherent reason for why he just kept talking.

"There's something you don't know about your Ginny, other than the fact that she's in love with my wife, I suppose." Malfoy nudged a door open, because somehow they had reached the ground floor without Harry noticing, and ushered Harry inside. Harry didn't care about much other than the blazing fire and the large armchair in front of it. He sank into it without noticing how rich it was, how soft it undoubtedly was. "Shall I call for Firewhisky from the elves?"

"I shouldn't."

"Shit, Potter, stop being so bloody noble for one night."

Harry closed his eyes. He still didn't want to let the hurt overpower the fact of his own hypocrisy, the fact that he had done something he'd promised Ginny he wouldn't, but drinking Firewhisky wouldn't be letting the hurt win. Probably not, anyway. "All right."

"Dio, Firewhisky!" Malfoy called, and sat down in the chair opposite Harry. Its back was to the fire. The thought flitted through Harry's mind that that was kind of an odd choice, but he didn't have the strength to pursue it right now, Auror training or not. He opened his eyes and stared at the fire again.

The glass appeared next to him. Harry picked it up and gulped it down, then choked. The flames that raced through his throat stung his nostrils and pumped his brain back to life. He leaned his cheek on his hand and stared at the fire.

"Don't you want to know the other thing you don't know about your Ginny?"

Harry lifted his head, stunned with misery still, and shook it. Malfoy's eyes narrowed. "Love's made you into a coward, then?"

"It's done the same thing to you. Since you want to scare Astoria away from Ginny somehow instead of just demanding that she end the arrangement."

Malfoy closed his eyes. Then he said, "Well, I suppose I deserved that. Come on, Potter. Let me tell you."

"Then just tell me. I have no idea why you want me to bloody _ask_."

Malfoy muttered something under his breath that Harry didn't bother to pay attention to, since he was fairly sure it would make no sense. "All right. She told Astoria that she feels like sex with you is a duty. She's thought about leaving you, but she's afraid it would break your heart. So she cares about you that much, I suppose."

Harry felt that blow, too, but it was a dimmer one than seeing Ginny in love with someone else. He shrugged and stared into the fire. "Is that something Astoria told you? Or do you and she not have that rule about spying on each other?"

"Something she told me. She seemed to think it was amusing. Come _on_ , Potter. What reason do you have to keep this charade going? I still don't think your Ginny's as blasé as she pretends. She can feel this way and sigh about it, but she hasn't had to watch you with a lover, has she? Hasn't had to watch you fall in love with someone else? And now she's given you bloody _permission_."

"It--it doesn't matter, Malfoy. For right now, she's content to stay with me. Maybe she told your wife that and didn't mean it. I'm in love with her. I don't want to give her up."

"Tell me that _you_ find that convincing, Potter, and I'll leave you alone."

Harry closed his eyes tightly. The problem was, he didn't. But his hurt and his spiraling grief didn't matter, did they? He and Ginny had negotiated this arrangement, had carefully discussed all the rules--including not dating among their immediate friends--and it would be hypocritical of him to change the rules now.

"Is being a hypocrite worse than being in love with someone else and telling that person you find sex with your husband a duty?"

"Stay _out_ of my head, Malfoy."

Harry's voice must have been deep enough to be convincing. Malfoy raised his hands in front of him. "I honestly wasn't. I'm not a good enough Legilimens to do it when your eyes are closed, anyway. You were muttering about hypocrisy under your breath, and I don't think you need to. Unless you're referring to Weasley's hypocrisy. Then I'll gladly join in."

Harry swallowed and said, "I don't want to hurt her."

"On the other hand, I _am_ good at spotting lies after long afternoons among Death Eaters. That was one."

"I just--I _agreed_ to it. How can I object to it now?"

"You didn't say anything about falling in love with someone else, did you? All of these arrangements I know of that are really successful have different people paying attention to each other on a regular basis, not sighing about it and encouraging them to sleep with someone else to soothe a feeling of guilt."

"Ginny said she needed multiple people to love. I'm the bastard that can't deal with that."

"Then you follow the rules. Sleep with someone else and see if she's as mature as she pretends."

"She's not pretending."

Malfoy raised an eyebrow in silence.

Harry shook his head roughly and downed his Firewhisky, feeling but ignoring the burn. "I do know some other people in this kind of relationship. One that's lasted longer than ours, even. I'm going to talk to them."

"Oh? Do I know them?"

"Not my secret to tell. Their parents wouldn't be happy if they did know about it, so they asked me not to spread it around." Harry stood up and put the glass down on the table next to him, staring at the wall. "Thanks for telling me the bloody truth, Malfoy. But I reckon I'd still be happier if you hadn't, and especially if you hadn't brought me here to spy on my wife without telling me."

"She's using you, can't you see that? You--"

"No more than Astoria’s using you," Harry retorted, and strode through the Manor towards the front door. He would go home and pretend he had never come here, never seen Ginny lying with Astoria in the bed. It was best that way. Whether or not he'd intended to, he'd spied on her. He'd violated the agreement by being jealous, and now this.

No wonder she thought of sex with him as a duty. No wonder she wasn't in love with him anymore. How could she be, when he violated her trust that way?

"Potter, wait."

Harry turned around, wary. Malfoy had a record of stupidly surprising revelations this evening. If he did something else similar, Harry wasn't sure that he could stand it.

But Malfoy only halted behind him and searched his face with a slow, careful gaze, as if he was looking to see damage his actions had left behind.

"If you want someone who can pay the kind of attention to you that should be paid, you know where to find me."

Harry rolled his eyes and stepped out the door. "You're in love with your wife, Malfoy. I want someone who's in love with _me_."

"Then Weasley doesn't qualify, either."

Harry walked to the end of the path and Disapparated without replying. He thought that Malfoy might be wrong. Ginny had said again and again that she could love more than one person. With time, Harry would adjust to this revelation. That he wasn't the only person Ginny loved didn't mean he didn't have a piece of her heart.

_So many negatives. Does that make things worth it?_

Harry sent off an owl as soon as he could. It wasn't late enough that it should bother them, he hoped. Then he lay down and watched as the hours ticked by and the time Ginny had said she would be home tonight came and went.


	3. Light Shed

"Come in, Harry, come in."

Harry smiled tentatively at Fleur as he stepped through the door of Shell Cottage. It was somewhat of a shock to realize how long it had been since he was here, nearly eighteen months. He still had seen Bill and Fleur and their children at Weasley family gatherings, of course, but once he'd visited them regularly.

_Why did I stop?_

Honestly, Harry couldn't remember.

"Uncle Harry!" Victoire pelted towards him, her long hair flying behind her. It seemed to get longer every time Harry saw her. She jumped, and Harry caught her in his arms and spun her around. Honestly, he'd cast a Strengthening Charm before he came through the door, or he wouldn't have been able to do that. She was getting so big, and Auror training only gave someone so many muscles.

"Hi, Uncle Harry," Dominique said, sticking her head out from her bedroom door with a long-suffering look. She was four going on forty and always acted as if guests were an intrusion on her privacy.

Had he had his own room when he was her age, Harry suspected he would have been the same. He nodded to Dominique. Satisfied, she ducked back into her room.

"The baby is asleep," Fleur said when he caught her eye. She was already holding out a cup of tea to him. "Bill had to go in to Gringotts for an emergency, but he should be back while you are still here."

Harry sat down with Victoire in his lap and managed to drink his cup of tea around a squirming six-year-old, answering her insistent questions about the baby dragon he had rescued months ago in a smuggling case. Victoire seemed to want the same things repeated over and over, but Harry did actually have a bit of recent news this time.

"They took him to Romania," he told Victoire and Fleur, who sat across the table smiling at them. "They couldn't just release him after all the time he'd been around humans, he missed some vital hunting lessons. So now he's going to run around the reserve and terrify all the Dragon-Keepers like your Uncle Charlie."

Victoire nodded, seriously, and kissed his cheek before she slid off his lap, grabbed a handful of biscuits from the table, and ran to her room. Harry looked at Fleur's softened, beaming face, and had to dunk his own biscuits in his tea to muffle his jealousy.

_I want that. I want that so much._

"And what is it that you wanted to discuss with me, Harry?" Fleur asked, leaning back in her chair to look around the corner, as if she wanted to make sure that Victoire had got safely to her room.

"I wanted to ask you about how you and Bill made your arrangement work."

Fleur turned to him quickly. "Why do you need to know that?" Her French accent, mostly gone now, sharpened on those words. "You know that we do not speak of these private things often."

Harry sighed. "I know, and I know you don't want Molly and Arthur to know. But--the arrangement Ginny and I have isn't working. I just want to know more about how yours does. You're the only other people I know and trust who have something like it."

Fleur studied him in silence. Then she asked, "What has changed?"

"She's in love with the woman she's sleeping with," Harry whispered. Ginny wouldn't want the name betrayed, so he wouldn't. "I--I thought it was just that she wanted other people to have sex with, but--"

"She is in love." Fleur blinked. "I am afraid that I cannot help you, Harry. I am very much in love with Armand, and it has caused no troubles between me and my Bill. And Bill does not have as much of a singular bond with Lucille and Jerry, but I know he would describe it as love."

Harry slumped in his seat. So it really was that simple. Other people could just love more people than he could. And they didn't get jealous. He was as immature as he'd feared he might be.

Fleur touched his wrist. "Harry. What began this?"

"Ginny wants me to take a lover," Harry whispered. "I never have. She said it would make her happy. But I'm _only_ in love with her, Fleur! I don't want to sleep with someone else or fall in love with someone else. And now Ginny isn't coming home when she said she would, and canceling dinners she said she'd have with me to spend time with her lover, and--"

" _That_ is the wrong thing."

"What?"

"Breaking promises." Fleur was frowning. "Harry. Bill and I work because we _work_. I could not simply spend time with Armand and break promises to Bill and expect that my bond to him, it would survive. And Bill could not make excuses to me so that he could spend all his time in bed with Lucille. We acknowledge that we come first. And the children come first, we make time for them. It does not sound as though your marriage comes first with Ginny."

Harry hesitated. He wanted to say that of course it did, but truth be told, he had been wondering the same thing himself.

"It also sounds as though you have to renegotiate your agreement," Fleur said, sounding slowly through the words. Harry didn't think it was language difficulty, though, just a way to give the concepts the weight they deserved. "Yes. That would be the best way to do it."

Harry swallowed. "But I agreed to this in the first place. How can I change it now?"

"Because it is not working." Fleur gave him an odd look. "You are more important than the agreement."

Harry dunked his biscuit in his tea again, but honestly, it sounded so _simple_ now that he thought about it that way. Of course he was more important than some words he and Ginny had spoken. And so was their marriage, and so was Ginny. Of course.

"Thanks, Fleur," he said.

Fleur smiled at him, but the smile still had a sad tinge. "And if you want to change it so that you end the arrangement and you and Ginny concentrate on your marriage together, that would be a good thing, yes? Perhaps you are not made to love multiple people."

Harry shook his head. "But Ginny is. I need to give her what she needs."

Fleur patted his hand and changed the subject to Louis and his first toddling steps. Harry listened and laughed, and renewed his determination to make this _work_ somehow.

Because he wanted children, and he couldn't imagine having children that weren't Ginny's.

*

"Harry? Is this going to take long? I'm late for a date with Astoria."

Harry stared at the back of Ginny's head for a second. She was in front of the mirror in the bathroom, turning to the side so that she could see the back of her head as she wound her hair up the length of a brush.

"You said you were going to be spending this evening with _me_." It was one reason that Harry had chosen this time for their conversation in the first place.

Ginny paused for a moment. Then she glanced over her shoulder at him with a frown. “Well, yes, I did say that.”

Harry’s gut was churning the way it usually only did when he was sick. “And?”

Ginny sighed and put her brush down. “And then Astoria Flooed me this afternoon and asked me to go on a date with her instead.”

“So you’re going to break the promise you made to me? I thought promises were an important part of this _arrangement_.”

Ginny’s eyes widened. “What are you talking about?”

 _I’m so fucking angry I can hardly see._ Harry squinted his eyes shut. He didn’t need to talk about this angry. He had to sound calm and mature and bring up the points that Fleur had brought up, or Ginny would just dismiss him and go out with Astoria.

It helped that he’d viewed his memories of the long, painful conversation he and Ginny had had when they negotiated their rules in a Penseive that afternoon. “You promised that you would prioritize our relationship,” Harry said, as calmly as he could. “You said that any lover you took wouldn’t make you break promises to me.”

Ginny was silent. Harry finally had to open his eyes to look at her, and found her playing with the loose ribbons that she hadn’t yet braided into her hair.

“You said that,” Harry repeated finally, when the silence had stretched until it had to be broken.

Ginny looked up, eyes dark. “I’m only breaking my promises because you broke yours _first_.”

“What one did I break? I never _said_ that I would take a lover—”

“You said that you would _accept_ this. But you don’t! You snap and sulk and glare at me every time I say I have a date with Astoria. You won’t talk with me about her. You can’t be happy for me. You turn away even when I try to _make_ you happy, because you want someone who’s only devoted to you! And you act as though you want to be the only one in my bed.”

“That’s because I _do_! I agreed to this to make you happy, Ginny! Because I thought you would leave me if I didn’t! That doesn’t mean I’m going to just paste a happy smile on my face when you break promises to me and want to compare how Astoria and I have sex with you.”

“I didn’t do that!”

“I spent all afternoon with my memories of our last conversations, Ginny.” Harry laughed and tried not to care how ugly the sound came out as. “Yes, you did. You said that she was more fun to be with, she knows how to touch you just right—”

“She _is_ more fun to be with, because she doesn’t mope all the time.”

Harry stopped. Somehow, he had lost control of this conversation. Ginny was speaking quietly again, sitting up and shaking out her hair so that it ran down over her shoulders in a cascade of fire Harry wanted nothing more than to touch.

“You mope,” Ginny repeated. “I told you that already. You sulk, and you act as though it’s beneath you to be happy for me. I suggested that you take a lover for _your_ sake, not mine. Even though it would make me happy. It would give you someone else to concentrate on, someone else to love you.”

“So you don’t love me anymore?”

“I didn’t say that. Just that it’s hard to show love to someone who’s moping all the time.”

Harry looked at the floor. He wanted to say something else, but his tongue was throbbing and churning like his gut.

“I can love people other than you. You’ve known that for months. Get _over_ it, Harry.”

Ginny swept out of the room. Harry watched her go, and everything that had been churning was hollow.

He sat alone in the empty house for a long time. Then he went and wrote another owl, but he didn’t send it to Fleur this time.

*

“You finally saw some—what the hell _happened_ to you, Potter?”

“Can you just give me some Firewhisky and not talk, Malfoy?”

To Harry’s relief, it seemed he was right about Ginny and Astoria not being at the Manor, because Malfoy didn’t make some comment the way he probably would have if they were upstairs. He just led Harry into the sitting room they’d used before and called for Firewhisky from the elves.

Harry stared in silence at his own hands, then at the glass when he arrived. Malfoy got up and came forwards as if he would pick up Harry’s hand and tilt the glass to his lips. Harry pushed away and swallowed the first gulp.

“What happened?”

“Ginny said that I’m moping so much that Astoria is more fun to be with. I—didn’t know that.” Harry turned his head, and Malfoy shut his mouth again in front of whatever was in Harry’s face. “I’m here for selfish reasons, you know.”

“Why do you say that?” Malfoy’s voice had gone unsteady.

“Because I’m not thinking about how this is going to affect Astoria or you or if it’s the right thing to do. I just want—I want to stop _hurting_. I want to be with someone who wants me, even if it’s because you’re going to use me to irritate Astoria and you’re a man and I don’t even know if I can respond to you. Just try to make it stop hurting, Malfoy. Please?”

Malfoy blinked once. Then he stood, came over, and plucked the glass of Firewhisky from Harry’s hands. Harry realized that he was shaking so hard the drink had started sloshing over the lip of the glass anyway.

Malfoy reached out and gently tucked his fingers under Harry’s chin, raising his head. He kissed him.

Harry tried to relax into it, although it was so strange and foreign and _different_ from Ginny’s kiss. Malfoy tasted sharper than she did and moved his tongue a different way. Harry shuddered with the realization that this was only the second person he’d ever let stick their tongue into his mouth, and Malfoy came forwards and wrapped an arm around his shoulders, drawing Harry up to face him.

Tingles as sharp as Malfoy’s taste followed his fingers when he trailed them up Harry’s arm again. Harry grunted in response. Malfoy drew back long enough to whisper, “How far do you want to go tonight?”

“Kiss me. Touch me.”

Harry wasn’t articulate, but Malfoy didn’t seem ready to hold that against him. He moved around Harry and waved his wand, Transfiguring the chair Harry’d been sitting in into a flat table of some kind. Harry had time for exactly one bolt of nervousness before Malfoy was lowering Harry on his front to the table.

It was padded, like a massage table. And massaging was what Malfoy had begun to do, once he’d Vanished Harry’s shirt with another wand-flick. There was a warm oil on his hands that could have come from lots of places.

Harry lay there, tense, as Malfoy pressed his thumbs into Harry’s shoulders and rocked his hands slightly back and forth. It must have been like massaging a plank, but Malfoy didn’t complain. He just lowered his head and firmly kissed the back of Harry’s neck.

A sudden unwinding of tension spiraled through Harry. He opened his eyes and exhaled slowly.

He could see the fire flickering in front of him, the fringes of his own hair dangling in the corners of his vision, a glimpse of the green velvet-like cloth that covered the table, and glimpses of Malfoy’s pale fingers now and then. Malfoy kissed the back of his neck again.

“Relax, Harry.”

And maybe it was all false, maybe it was just Malfoy trying to hurt him and trying to hurt Astoria and maybe it was a way for Harry to get revenge on the woman his wife was leaving him for, but—

The words seemed to give him permission to let go. Harry closed his eyes again and sank back into the steady movements of Malfoy’s hands, the way that knots loosened under his thumbs, the slow trickling of the oil, and the kisses that ranged down his spine to his waist but never any lower.

When he woke up, he was in one of the massive chambers at Malfoy Manor, still only half-undressed, tucked under the covers of an indecently-sized bed. His shirt, wand, and glasses all occupied a table next to the bed, along with a note.

_Had to leave early this morning. Stay as long as you want. Tell me when I can see you again. DM._


	4. Leaning In

“Where were you last night?”

Harry paused as he came into the house, letting the door quietly shut behind him, and blinked at Ginny. She had a cup of tea in front of her but didn’t appear to have drunk more than half of it, which was really unusual.

“You told me that I should find someone. So I did.”

Ginny opened her mouth slightly. Then she shook her head and sighed. “Harry, you’ve never been with anyone other than me. It can be dangerous to jump straight into having a lover outside your marriage. Especially a man. I wish you’d told me. I could have prepared you.”

“Prepared me for what?” The immediate image that seared itself into Harry’s consciousness was one he had never expected to have—Ginny’s fingers holding him open, pressing lubrication into his arse, while Malfoy watched from somewhere across the room.

It distracted him enough that Ginny’s words seemed odd and silly. “I could have told you about what sex with a man is like.”

Harry coughed. “I—I didn’t have sex last night, Ginny. I talked to him, a little, and I said that I was open to trying things with him.” And without the pain of last night, that admission made his cheeks burn. He had _used_ Malfoy, that was what he’d done. He’d gone straight to him and complained about Ginny and made it clear that he didn’t really care how Malfoy felt; he was just there for someone who wanted him.

On the other hand, maybe Malfoy understood better than Harry thought. After all, he was in love with his wife, too, and this was a way to cope with maybe losing her to Ginny. No one else in the world could probably understand better.

Ginny drew herself back. “And who is he?”

“Malfoy.”

Ginny frowned a little. “Astoria says that he’s very careless with his lovers and never stays with them for long.”

“Then maybe it won’t be for long.” Part of Harry would have been relieved at that, honestly. It would mean that he didn’t have to worry about hurting Malfoy as much as he would otherwise. “I think it’s a loneliness thing. And, well, he wants to have sex with me.”

“Yes?” Ginny asked in a tone that made it clear she didn’t understand.

“At least _someone_ does.”

Ginny’s cheeks flushed hotly. “I never said I didn’t,” she snapped. “Just that you need an attitude adjustment, and to stop telling me that you’re fine with things that you’re not fine with.”

“I told you that I wasn’t _fine_ with this when you brought the arrangement up—”

“You said that I should have what I needed.”

“And where in that bargain is there space for what _I_ need?” Harry shook his head as Fleur’s words came back to him. “Our marriage was supposed to remain important. Lately, it doesn’t seem as if it’s important to you.”

“Of course it is. But I need some space from you and some stress relief, and that’s what Astoria is for me.”

 _She’s more than that. You’re in love with her._ But the words burned Harry’s throat and wouldn’t come out. He couldn’t tell Ginny that without admitting that he’d spied on her and Astoria, courtesy of Malfoy.

And anyway, what did it matter if Ginny was in love with Astoria? She had told Harry that that was another part of what she needed, the space and time to fall in love with more than one person.

“I warned you to be careful, and you’re acting as though I said you couldn’t see Malfoy. I just told you to be careful.”

“One of the things I need, Ginny, is for you to prioritize our marriage.”

“And when you actually tell me what that means, other than me giving up Astoria, then I will.”

Harry was at a loss. He couldn’t come up with anything other than closing the marriage again, and from the eyebrow she raised before she swept out of the room, Ginny knew it.

The owl that flew in a minute later was a black one that could have been from the Ministry, but the seal on the letter was a huge M with a peacock spreading its tail in front of it. Harry petted the owl’s back as he opened the letter.

 _Good morning, Harry. I hope you enjoyed last night. Maybe I invite you out to dinner tomorrow night at the Leaky Cauldron_?

Part of Harry relaxed. Malfoy probably hated the Leaky Cauldron and considered it plebeian, but he was trying. For Harry’s sake.

And maybe it didn’t matter as much what the sex of the person was who was doing this. Maybe it would even work out the way Malfoy wanted, make Astoria take notice, and end up separating her and Ginny.

_Maybe I’m a terrible person._

But as he wrote back an affirmative reply for the owl to take, Harry couldn’t bring himself to care.

*

“Astoria thinks you’re doing this to make me jealous.”

Harry pulled back with a sharp hiss. Ginny was sprawled on their bed, naked, her legs open, and he’d been lapping at her, concentrating on nothing but her and his own glowing arousal a minute ago, and now _this_. “Why do you have to talk about her when _we’re_ having sex?”

“So, are you?” Ginny peered down at him, head tilted at an odd angle. The fall of her red hair made Harry’s cock throb, but at the same time, the words were killing all the warmth that filled him.

Harry took a deep breath. Revising those memories the other day had helped with more than just the initial conversation he’d had with Ginny. “Remember that we made a promise we weren’t going to talk about our other lovers when we’re having sex?”

Ginny’s lips parted. “But I did it before, and you never said anything!”

“That’s still a part of the original bargain that we didn’t _both_ agree to change. Do you want to have this conversation, or do you want to have sex?”

Ginny held still, tense and trembling, for a long moment. Then she rolled over and reached for the lacy robe that she’d discarded ten minutes before. “I want to talk about this.”

Harry grimaced and sat back. Once he’d have had to cast a charm to deflate his erection, but talk of Astoria and Malfoy and people outside the two of them had done that handily. He noticed Ginny eying his groin. He ignored her. She wanted to have this conversation, so they were going to do that.

“Why would I be doing this just to make you jealous?” Harry asked, once Ginny was sitting up on the bed and he was sitting up on the cushioned wooden chair across from it where Ginny usually sat to write her articles. He wanted to look at the fire more than he wanted to look at his wife, but he forced himself to keep his gaze steady. “You’ve been urging me for ages to take another lover. I am. I’m trying to keep to the terms of our arrangement, and you’re upset. Why?”

“Because you never _did_ before!”

“Did what?”

“Took another lover. Adhered to the terms. I don’t want to think that you’re just making me jealous, Harry, but it’s a lot more likely than you suddenly discovering you’re bisexual.”

“I want to try certain things,” Harry said slowly. He wanted to do more than that, but he wasn’t going to betray Malfoy’s secrets to Ginny. They’d also said that they wouldn’t betray their lovers’ secrets as part of that arrangement. “I don’t know if I’m bisexual. Maybe it’ll end up being that I need a woman instead.”

“We _said_ that our lovers would be the same sex as us!”

“And you’ve already broken the rules and then tried to go back on them. What is the real reason that you’re so upset, Gin? Just because I’m trying to play by the rules now?”

Ginny drew her robe up around her and said nothing for long moments. Neither did Harry. Honestly, he was sick enough of all the game-playing that he knew what Fleur had meant. Prioritizing their marriage still should have been the most important thing, according to the bargain he and Ginny had made. And if it wasn’t, then that should have been clearer earlier. Harry would have divorced her over that.

He stared into the fire as the realization stole over him like frost. He _would_ have, wouldn’t he? He’d been terrified that Ginny would leave him, sure that he had to agree to all her terms to keep her, but if she’d made it clear that she would be comparing him to her lovers and breaking promises…

He would have walked away.

He looked back up. “What did you say?” he added, aware that the echoes of words he hadn’t heard were fading.

“Now you want to ignore me.”

“You’ve ignored me for a long time,” Harry said, surprised at how good it felt to say it. “Come on, Ginny. Stop being childish and tell me what’s going on. You know these arrangements only work if we’re honest.”

“You haven’t been.”

“Then I’m sorry. But you haven’t been, either. Do you want to do mutual apologies and go on to talking about what’s really bothering you, or do you just want to accuse each other all night?”

Ginny’s face flushed the color of the roses Astoria had given her last week. But she had a better hold on her temper than she used to have in Hogwarts. She drummed her fingers on the bed for a second, and then nodded. “I’m sorry. But, Harry, I—I _have_ to have Astoria. She’s as important to me as the air I breathe. I’m in love with her.”

There it was, then. The pain hit Harry like a cut into his stomach. He took a deep breath and tried to tell himself that cuts were used in surgery, too. “All right. Then you want a divorce?”

“No!” Ginny held out a hand to him. “I’m saying that I want to have you both. I love you both.”

“You haven’t been acting like that with me.”

“You’re demanding too much! You’ve been childish and sulky and petty about Astoria the whole time I’ve been dating her! I don’t want to change the terms of our arrangement, I just want to _hold_ to them, and that includes you being mature the way you said you would.”

Harry had a better hold on his temper than _he_ used to have, too. He honestly didn’t think their marriage would have survived this long without it. He held his breath just to make sure, let it out in a shaky way, and said, “All right. I’ll do my best.”

“It has to be better than that. I need you to not act jealous, Harry. It’s destroying my life, worrying constantly about you when I’m with Astoria. She’s noticed it, too, and that’s one reason that she thinks you’re only with Draco to make me jealous. Because you want me to feel the same way you do.”

Harry held himself rigid. Emotions that he honestly didn’t want to name swelled up inside him and fell back. “Fine,” he said, voice clipped. “Then we’ll hold to _all_ the terms of the arrangement. Which means that you don’t get to object to who I’m dating unless I’m actually dating a member of your family or one of our close friends.”

“But if you’re only doing it to make me jealous—”

“I’m _not_.” And that was true right now, even if it wouldn’t have been true before tonight.

“Astoria says you are.”

“So you trust her more than me.” Harry leaned back in his chair, feeling as weary as though he’d just chased down a Dark wizard. “What would I have to do to prove I’m telling the truth, Ginny? Drink Veritaserum? This is never going to work if I tell you the truth and then you just accuse me of lying.”

“But it makes so much sense…”

“Why? When you were urging me to take another lover, you never banned Draco Malfoy. In fact, you were the one who urged me towards him just last fucking week!”

Ginny held her knees and avoided his eyes, saying nothing. Harry knew the truth, then, the one that filled the air between them like incense.

She did trust Astoria more than she did him. The only thing that had changed was Astoria’s accusation.

_Maybe we are going to divorce. There’s just no other way that this is going to end up._

But Harry still wanted to try, because, God, even when he felt angry at her and wanted to shake her for letting Astoria influence her this much, he loved Ginny. She was still beautiful sitting there. He still knew how generous and loving she could be.

He just wanted some of that for himself.

“I don’t trust her more than you,” Ginny whispered. “Just differently. And—I don’t think Malfoy suddenly declaring his interest in you when we’ve all had these arrangements since the beginning of our marriages is a coincidence.”

Harry sighed, some of his anger fading. The truth was, she was right, even though Harry wasn’t about to say it. But some other things remained the truth, too, like how much it stung that she valued Astoria’s opinion over his.

“I’m still going on the date with Malfoy that we have planned for tomorrow night,” Harry said firmly. “After that, who knows, we’ll see. Maybe he’ll walk up to me tomorrow and start spouting off nonsense about blood purity again.”

Ginny smiled weakly, but she kept her eyes on the floor. “I’d prefer it if you didn’t go on the date at all.”

“And I’d prefer it if you kept your promises to me about not canceling evenings we made plans together so that you could go date your lovers, but that’s the way things are, isn’t it?”

Ginny stared at him, eyes as large and shining as moons. “You’re doing this to punish me?”

Harry shook his head. “I’m going to sleep in the guest room.”

“You _are_ doing this to punish me.”

“What would be the point of me saying I’m not?” Harry asked wearily as he got dressed again and picked up his glasses, wand, and pillow. “You think I’m lying when I’m telling the truth. You want me to let you break promises while also not doing things that our arrangement said we could _both_ do. You trust Astoria more than me.”

Resounding silence was the answer behind him as he left the bedroom.

*

“I haven’t become a leopard Animagus since you saw me last.”

“What?” Harry blinked and turned towards Malfoy. He’d been sitting at the bar at the Leaky Cauldron, thinking he’d spot Malfoy when he came in by the mirror on the wall, but apparently he’d spent more time staring at his glass of Firewhisky than the mirror.

“I’m not going to claw your face off. That’s the way you’re looking at me right now.”

Harry smiled and tried to swallow down the tension. It had been so easy the other evening, with Malfoy massaging him. It ought to have been now, but… “Sorry. I don’t really think that.”

Malfoy studied him, then murmured, “I’m willing to have this date here, in a public place where you’re comfortable. But I don’t know how comfortable it’s actually going to be with everyone staring at us. Would you mind if we went somewhere else?”

“As long as it’s not back to the Manor. Not right now.”

Malfoy gave him a small smile and his hand twitched as if he’d like to hold out his arm and assist Harry to his feet. But Harry got there on his own. Discretion was the watchword for him, Ginny, and probably Malfoy and Astoria as well, although more people knew about their “arrangement” than knew about Bill and Fleur’s.

“There’s a small place I know in Muggle London.”

“ _Muggle_ London?”

“I’ve changed a lot since you knew me.”

 _Sounding reasonable is one way._ “Lead on, then,” Harry said, and Malfoy flourished an arm as he bowed him out of the room.

*

The “small place” Malfoy took him to was actually a pub, which made Harry wonder if Malfoy had needed a place to duck out of the rain one time and had somehow lost his wand. But it served delicious steak and kidney pie, and the beer Harry was drinking was good enough, and the place was small and dark and filled with Muggles all yelling at the two tellies on the walls. Harry relaxed as he ate and realized how unlikely he was to be actually recognized here, and wasn’t sure which was better, the food or the privacy.

Malfoy got a mug of his own beer and the shepherd’s pie, and nursed both long past the point where Harry would have thought they’d be gone. He shook his head when Harry glanced at him. “I’m not bored.”

“Please don’t use Legilimency on me.”

“I’m not. You’re just easy to read.”

Harry thought about how much trouble Ginny seemed to have “reading” him lately, and then forced the idea away with a scowl. He hadn’t come here to think about the trouble his marriage was in. “There’s one thing I want to know. You could have chosen a lot of people to make Astoria jealous. Was it only me because I’m married to Ginny?”

Malfoy looked at his beer in response. Then he looked up, and Harry had the odd thought that he was seeing the real Malfoy for the first time, as if he’d dropped some level of shielding behind his eyes. Maybe he had, if he was actually a trained Occlumens.

“No,” Malfoy said slowly. “That was the reason I first started thinking of you in this context. But—you’re beautiful, and you’re honest, and I do like introducing straight men to the pleasures of gay sex.”

Harry felt himself flush. He was glad again that the pub was so dim. “I—I don’t know if it’ll go that far, Malfoy.”

“Why not? And please call me Draco.”

Harry paused, then nodded. He was thinking of sleeping with the man; it would be stupid to go on calling him by his last name. “Fine. Draco. Because my marriage is ripping apart at the seams, and Ginny made it clear that this is going to rip it further.”

“I was right, then?” Draco was smiling a little.

“About what? You’ve been right about so many things, it’s hard to choose.”

“You _do_ know how to flirt,” Draco murmured, even though Harry hadn’t meant that as flirtation. “About the fact that she only hasn’t been jealous so far because you haven’t given her anything to be jealous about. The minute you started seeing someone who wanted you, she wants to stand in the way.”

“I really, really don’t think it’s about that.”

“Then what is it about?”

“She’s in love with Astoria and—it doesn’t feel like she’s in love with me anymore.”

Draco was still for a long moment. Then he shook his head. “I don’t understand, then. My circumstances are fairly unique. I didn’t marry Astoria _expecting_ to fall in love with anyone while I was married. But why are you still staying with a woman who doesn’t want to be with you?”

“Because our marriage is the most important thing in the world to me. Because _I’m_ still in love with her. Because I don’t want this to fail. Because what’s going to happen to my relationship with my best friends and the other Weasleys, if I let her go? Because I don’t want to say she’s right and I wasn’t mature enough to avoid jealousy.”

Harry let the words spill out with an ease he wasn’t expecting. Well, maybe it was just that he’d been longing to say them and didn’t know how to say them to Ginny or any of the Weasleys, not that they weren’t there.

Draco considered him again. Harry looked him full in the face and tried to imagine whether he was beautiful. Well, his hair was soft and Harry would like to touch it. And his honesty was refreshing.

And it made Harry’s head spin more than the beer to know that he was _wanted_.

“All right,” Draco said. “But I’ll tell you one thing. You might have made a mistake agreeing to this arrangement with her if you were going to be jealous—”

Harry nodded miserably.

“But she’s ridiculous to demand that you just _stop_ feeling that way. Emotions don’t work that way. And she’s taking full advantage of the fact that your arrangement is lopsided. She wants to be able to fall in love with other people and neglect your marriage and break her promises, and still have you sitting around, waiting for her.”

“She’s not like that. You’re saying she’s—evil.”

Draco gave a short laugh that made a few people look over at him. “That would be a pretty large claim for me to make, given my own past. No. Not evil. Just dishonest, and demanding.”

Harry stared into his beer.

“Harry.” The name made him start more than he’d known it would, and he looked up to see Draco leaning across to put a gentle hand on his wrist. The tingles like fire raced up Harry’s arm to his shoulder again. “I don’t know if I can fix this. I think there’s more going on here than you can let yourself see. But I do know that she said you could date someone, and you’ve decided to date someone, and I don’t want to talk about your wife or mine right now. I want to do something else.”

“Like what?” Harry breathed. It was easier to think about being in bed with Draco while that hand continued resting on his wrist.

“Not that right at the moment.” Draco winked at him and withdrew his hand, and disappointment jabbed Harry with unexpected sharpness. “I have tickets to see the Falmouth Falcons play tonight. Interested?”

Harry couldn’t even remember the last time he’d gone to a Quidditch game with Ginny. Since covering them was her job, she understandably didn’t want to spend free time there. And he’d never seen the Falcons play.

Which meant it would be something _completely_ different.

He grinned and downed the last of his beer. “When does the game start?”

*

“Did you _see_ that?” Harry leaped to his feet with a yell as the Falcons’ Seeker swooped overhead, weaving in and out between the audience to fetch the Snitch. She’d missed it, but it was still an effort that made Harry sure she would win the game against the Wimbourne Wasps. “Holy hell!”

“Nothing more than you did, once upon a time.”

Harry snorted and sat back down, craning his neck so that he could keep the Seeker in sight as she rose straight up, her robes flapping around her, and spun so that the Bludger chasing her clipped the twigs of the Wasp Seeker’s broom instead. “Because I was mental.”

“You’ve never played since then?”

“Not as much fun without a full team,” Harry said absently. The Snitch was hovering over the Wasps’ Keeper’s hoop. He thought the Falcons’ Seeker might have seen it, but she was drifting casually in that direction instead of zooming, so he wasn’t sure.

“You can’t put together a full team?”

“Eh.” Harry shrugged, relaxing a little as he decided the Seekers weren’t going to come as close as they had any time soon. “Ron can play a good Keeper, but George hasn’t wanted to be a Beater since the war, and it’s hard to put together a full fourteen people from among the ones we know.”

“You _could_ ask around the Ministry, you know. Plenty of Aurors play Quidditch.”

“Oh, I know.” Harry flipped his hand. “But, well, we tried that the year that Ron and I left training.” He broke off, grimacing. He didn’t want to think about that. He just wanted to concentrate on the game in front of him.

Draco, unfortunately, didn’t seem inclined to let things go. “So what happened?”

Harry sighed. “One of the players on my team kept trying to break my skull with the Bludger. It turned out she had a Death Eater uncle.”

“But you dodged, of course.”

“No. I ended up in hospital with a cracked skull. Not fun.”

Draco was quiet, and Harry got drawn back into the game. This particular pitch was a huge patch of grass that was also magically combined with a swamp and a sweep of sand, to make things more exciting, and then the whole was corralled with shining stone stands. Most people had cast Cushioning Charms underneath their rumps. Harry, who was in a prime position halfway between the Keepers’ hoops thanks to Draco’s tickets, hadn’t had the chance to do that before Draco was doing it for him.

“Look! The Wasps’ Seeker spotted it.”

“Are you sure?” Harry jerked his head towards Draco without taking his eyes off the Snitch. “He’s been incompetent all evening.”

Draco sniffed. “Hardly incompetent when he’s playing for the third-ranked team in the league, Potter. Just not as flashy as Seeker Jones over there. But, of course, you would pay attention to the flash over the competence.”

Harry laughed. “We made a bargain. You want me to call you by your first name. Well, you have to do the same.”

Draco was silent. Harry looked over at him, wondering if he’d offended him.

Draco was still, his eyes wide, rendered dark by the combination of light and shadows falling across the pitch as night came on. “Thank you,” he breathed. “I didn’t want to take your name again without you giving it to me.”

Harry stared back, feeling a strange warm squirming in his stomach, and then Draco looked over his head with parted lips and Harry whirled back to the game. The Snitch was diving straight for the swampy portion of the pitch, with the Wasps’ Seeker close behind and Jones swooping in from the high position she’d been holding, like the falcon her team was named for.

Harry could see what was going to happen as if it was written on the insides of his eyelids, and he applauded as he watched the Snitch swerve away from the swamp and launch itself to the left. Jones spun and caught it in an extended hand. The Falcons’ fans leaped to their feet around Harry and Draco’s seats, shouting.

Draco was applauding himself, but not loudly enough to miss the words that Harry leaned over and hissed into his ear. “You’ve used my first name before this, though. Before I gave you permission.”

Draco turned his head enough to catch Harry’s eye, and smiled at whatever he saw there. “Do you want me to apologize?”

“No. I want—I want to go somewhere we can’t be seen.”

And although Draco blinked and swallowed, he clasped Harry’s arm, and escorted him through the crowd towards the stadium entrance.

*

Draco had Apparated them somewhere within the Muggle world again. Harry honestly wasn’t sure where. It was a nameless brick alley with rubbish around their feet and puddles squeaking beneath their boots. It could have been near the pub they’d eaten at.

It didn’t matter. Nothing did except the shadows and that the bricks probably weren’t too rough behind Draco’s back as Harry forced him gently against them and then kissed Draco.

It was slow, and Draco allowed him to control it, although he was trembling like an Abraxan with a fly on its skin the whole time. Harry tried to linger in the sharper, wilder taste this time, and he moved his hands down Draco’s sides to appreciate the leaner muscles, and up to stroke the broader shoulders.

Draco hissed and sighed. He brought his hands into play when Harry nodded, but he just clutched Harry’s shoulders as if he thought he was going to faint.

Harry swallowed as he felt his cock stirring. _This is real. I can—_

Before he let himself think about it, he brought his groin into contact with Draco’s.

Draco dropped his head back with a shocked gasp. Harry grinned. He liked that. He leaned in and licked the salt along the side of Draco’s throat, and he liked that, too.

“Are you sure, Harry? You seemed like you—”

The words started the emotions churning in Harry’s mind again, and he didn’t want to listen to them. He scraped with his teeth down the same path as his tongue, and Draco gratifyingly shut up. Harry rocked forwards and gasped himself. It wasn’t much like being with Ginny, feeling the hardness there—

 _Shut up_ , Harry told himself this time. _Shut up and enjoy._

But it was _something_ , to have hardness and pressure just where he wanted it, and he hooked his hands around Draco’s shoulders and buried his head in Draco’s neck as his body tensed and trembled and vibrated. Bubbles of pleasure rose in his mind like burning champagne. Shocks of sensation ran through him, to his groin and arse and legs and hands.

“Harry,” Draco groaned into his ear.

His name joined the shocks, and Harry licked Draco’s tongue and felt as if a starburst was opening in his chest. He rubbed back and forth, back and forwards, and Draco cradled him, eyes wide.

Tight cloth, thickness, he thought he could even feel the _ridges_ on Draco’s cock, and grey eyes staring at him as if he was the center of the universe—

Harry came, jerking himself up and shutting his eyes, riding the surge as his hips thrust roughly again and again. He felt the hardness in front of him dissolve into spreading wetness, and he let his head drop in relief against Draco’s shoulder.

“You’re all right?” Draco whispered.

Harry nodded. There was an unfamiliar emotion that had joined the tumult in his head, so he stood there and let it come to him.

Smugness. He’d been chasing his own pleasure, something that usually felt selfish to him, but Draco had come. Draco had enjoyed it as much as he had even though Harry hadn’t really taken any special precautions that he would.

It had been _easy_. And Draco was still staring at him with that softness like falling stars in his eyes.

Harry took a deep breath. Then he kissed Draco again and ran his hand down through Draco’s hair to his ear, stroking his skin on the way. Draco turned his head so that his cheek rested in Harry’s palm and said nothing.

“So I might be bisexual,” Harry whispered. “A little.”

Draco’s laughter was like falling stars, too.


	5. Limerence

“How did your date with Draco go?”

Ginny’s tone made Harry’s shoulders tighten, but he swallowed that down the way he had some of his own reactions earlier that night, and smiled at her. He could make the choice to be honest, he reminded himself, whatever Ginny thought or said about it. “Fine. We went to a Muggle pub to eat, and then we went to watch the Falcons and the Wasps play.”

Ginny paused. She was sitting in her favorite chair in front of the fireplace, made of battered red cloth that, with the firelight catching on it, reminded Harry of the colors of the Gryffindor common room. She’d had a book on her lap, but she’d lowered it the minute he came through the door. “You did _what_?”

“Yeah, the Muggle pub surprised me, too. I didn’t think Draco knew about anything like that. Or that he’d want to eat in the Muggle world. But it was nice not to have people staring at me.” Harry hung up his cloak in the cupboard next to the door.

Ginny just blinked. Her eyes were so dilated Harry almost thought she’d taken a potion. “I—I never expected he’d do that.”

“I know.” Harry sat down in the chair across from her, and decided that he wanted to try and talk about this, at least until the point Ginny decided she didn’t. “Ginny, can we change some of the terms of our arrangement?”

Ginny’s eyes snapped down to her book at once. “I’m not interested in it.”

“Fine, then. Can we _keep_ to the terms of our arrangement? Which means we don’t break promises to each other, and we can be as candid as we want. Should we—”

“I’m tired, Harry,” Ginny said sharply, putting down her book. “And one thing you have to remember is that Malfoy probably took you to that Muggle put just to appeal to you and convince you it was the right thing to date him. Not because he really liked the food or really likes Muggles.”

“Even if he only did it for that reason, it’s more than I would ever have thought he’d do.”

Ginny shook her head, eyes closing. Her hair swished around her shoulders. “Did the two of you have sex?”

 _Honesty_ , Harry thought. Not that Ginny had ever told him all the details about how she and Astoria had sex, and most of the time, it had been when she and Harry were in bed together and he didn’t want to listen.

But he could make decisions on his own, whether or not Ginny ever intended to honor them.

“I rubbed up against him in an alleyway.”

Ginny’s mouth and eyes opened at the same time. She stared at him, perfectly motionless. Harry stared back. He had always felt he understood her, that her heart and mind were open to him, and that was part of the reason he loved her. Right now, he had no idea what she was feeling.

Ginny gave a rough laugh and slammed her book shut. “Well, that’s just great, isn’t it? Years of me urging you to explore that part of yourself had no effect, but now you suddenly decide you’re bisexual when it’s Draco bloody _Malfoy_ saying so.”

“I don’t know yet exactly what I am. It’s more complicated than I—”

Ginny turned around and started walking up the stairs. Harry stood up. He wasn’t going to chase after her and yell at her, but he was sick of her just ending these conversations they needed to have. “Ginny.”

She froze in place, her hand clenched on the bannister. Harry wanted to curse. Without even realizing it, he’d used the voice that he usually reserved for talking to criminals who were trying to run away.

But he didn’t apologize. It wasn’t the right time. Instead, he murmured, “Why are you upset now that I’m finally doing what you’ve wanted me to for years?”

Ginny turned around. Her face was in shadow from the staircase and the fire. “Because I don’t want it to be with Malfoy.”

“Why not? A few weeks ago you were pushing me at him.”

“It _shouldn’t_ be. You were rivals in school. I know that you’re not the same as him. Why are you getting along now?”

And that made shame clench and burn in Harry’s gut, because he knew exactly why. Draco was in love with Astoria, and wanted to take her away from Ginny, and that was the only reason he’d put his dislike of Harry aside.

_I want her to be honest, but I’m not being honest, either._

“Okay,” Harry said. “Then do you want me to stop seeing him?”

“ _Yes._ Of course I do.”

“Then can we discuss you stopping your dates with Astoria? Because—”

“The difference is,” Ginny said, voice so low that Harry couldn’t tell which emotion it was holding, “that I’m in _love_ with Astoria. For you, this is an easy fuck with Malfoy. You’re trying to deny me something I need again, Harry. I was made to love more than one person. I’ve already told you that.”

Harry stared at her in silence. She still didn’t move, and she didn’t speak again, which meant Harry wouldn’t be able to tell what she was feeling.

But he did say, “So you want me to break up with Malfoy. You want a say in that. But you don’t want to change anything about what you’re doing.”

“Are you in love with him?”

“No. But—”

“Then it should be no trouble for you to break it off with him. We talked about that when we opened up our marriage, Harry. We said that our wishes would matter more than those of temporary sex partners.”

Those words broke open a dam in Harry he hadn’t even realized was there. He snarled, “Only for _you_ , apparently. You’re denying _me_ everything I ask for. I can’t have you home on the evenings I ask to have you there, I can’t date or have sex with other people even though _you_ can, I can’t escape the fucking woman that you say you’re in love with!”

Ginny started back down the stairs, and now the anger on her face was open and blazing. “I _am_ in love with her!”

“Listen the fuck up, Ginny! It’s not about that! It’s about the fact that you want to have everything and you want to give me nothing! You just think that I’m going to sit home and wait for you all the time even when you act like you don’t care about me.”

“But you don’t have to love more than one person! _I do_.”

Ginny was standing at the bottom of the stairs now. She glared at him, and her hair curled and sparked around her. Harry stared back and found the words rising to his lips, the ones he’d never wanted to speak.

“But _do_ you love more than one person right now? Or is it just one?”

Ginny took a long step back. Then she watched him as if he was a venomous snake. Harry turned on one heel and stormed out of the house.

*

“Mate? Have you been here all night?”

Harry blinked and sat up. He’d been asleep with his cheek on the top of the desk and the paperwork that he still had to do. He yawned at Ron. “Yeah, actually, I was here all night. What are you doing here?” he added. Ron had gone through Auror training with him, but had admitted after a few years that it didn’t suit him and had gone to help George in the joke shop.

Ron sighed and sat down in the chair at the side of the desk that Harry always kept for him. It was the only one free, actually, since the other two chairs were occupied with wavering piles of paperwork. “Eat this,” he demanded, holding out a plate that was covered with Preservation Charms and Warming Charms.

Harry sighed happily as he dug into the sausages and eggs on it. Ron joined him with his own plate. Harry sat back when he was done and raised an eyebrow at his best friend.

Ron sighed like he was about to jump off a cliff. “Gin sent me an owl saying you’d be here.”

 _Nice of her to do that when she wouldn’t come herself._ But Harry expertly hid the pain, and just nodded. “Okay. What else did she say to convince you that you needed to come instead of just sending me a Patronus or something?”

“She said you had an argument. That she was convinced you were going to divorce her.”

Harry closed his eyes. Ron and Hermione knew about their arrangement, but didn’t know all the details. Harry had started to explain it to them once, but Ron had turned green and Hermione had kindly but firmly shut him down, explaining that she didn’t want to know about her in-laws’ sex lives.

“Mate?”

“I can’t talk about it without talking about the things that you don’t want to hear about,” Harry said, without opening his eyes.

There were long moments of rustling and shifting there were probably Ron passing the plate back and forth across his lap. Then he sighed. “Maybe I should have started listening a long time ago.”

Harry stared at him. Ron avoided his eyes, looking at the floor. “Hermione and I have seen that you’re getting more and more unhappy, but—we said we weren’t going to interfere.”

Harry looked off at the wall and tried to make his voice as flat, factual, and fair as possible. “Ginny is in love with the person she’s been sleeping with. She’s urged me to find a partner outside the marriage before. I went on a date with someone for the first time last night. Ginny got upset. She said that she needs to go on dates but I don’t, and she’s in love with this person she’s sleeping with but I can’t be in love with the person I dated.”

“I—you aren’t, mate?”

Harry shook his head. “But this was supposed to be an arrangement based on honesty and promises. Ginny hasn’t been keeping to the terms. She made it clear last night that she doesn’t _want_ to. She wants to be able to do whatever she wants and forbid me from—anything outside the marriage. I’m supposed to sit home waiting for her like a good little spouse.”

“Wow. She _said_ that?”

“No. It’s just the impression I got. And then she said again that she was in love with this person, and I asked her who she really loves at the moment, more than one person or just one.”

“I can’t believe that,” Ron said earnestly, leaning forwards. “Ginny’s been in love with you since she was eleven years old. I can’t believe she would just burn out on you like that.”

Harry nodded shortly. It was the main reason he felt guilty for saying that to Ginny in the first place. She had hidden her crush from him when she thought he would find it embarrassing and had dated other blokes, but he knew how faithful her heart was.

And he loved her, for all the reasons that he’d told Draco, and others. Except for Ron and Hermione, no one had been more of a rock in his life. She was bright, burning, beautiful. Even with the last few months when they seemed to be getting more distant from each other all the time, he only had to glance to the side and see her smiling gently to feel a lift in his heart.

That meant…

What?

He knew she was happy mainly because of Astoria. And he didn’t want to stand in the way of that, not when she had told him her heart would die if she tried to imprison it in a traditional marriage, and Harry believed her.

On the other hand, he wasn’t willing to lean back and let her do whatever she wanted, either.

“I don’t want a divorce,” he told Ron. “But she can’t make all these rules for me and not obey them herself.”

A tinge of green came to Ron’s cheeks, but he nodded. “That makes sense. So do you think you can talk to her about those rules and have her obey them, too?”

“I hope so.”

 _Otherwise,_ Harry thought, and then turned his mind away from that darkened path that seemed to be stretching in front of him. If it was his _wants_ compared with Ginny’s _needs_ , could he really insist on divorce?

The truly frightening thing was that he could think about it now.

*

“I wish to talk to Auror Potter.”

Harry looked up. It was the middle of the afternoon, about an hour before he would usually leave to go home. He had thought of leaving early, but, well, he did have paperwork, and he could freely admit he was putting off the confrontation with Ginny for as long as possible.

Now a woman clad in a set of exquisitely tailored pale blue robes entered the office and stared at him. She had long, pale blonde hair that shone against the dark wood of Harry’s walls, which he had enchanted his stone walls to be replaced by as soon as he was made a senior Auror. And she had large pale green eyes that he knew.

“Mrs. Malfoy,” Harry said to her, inclining his head without standing. “Is there something I can do for you?”

“You can stop plaguing Ginny. And you can stop dating my husband.”

Harry studied her in silence. He could have said so many things, but the more he thought about it, the more he decided flailing around wouldn’t help anyone in the situation. And the silence seemed to unnerve Astoria more than he’d thought. She turned around and stared at the photographs on the wall, most of them of him and one or more Weasleys, as if she thought that would help her recover her composure.

“You don’t have many photographs of your wife here.”

“No. They’re here on the desk instead.”

Astoria turned around and stalked over as if she actually wanted to see them. She moved her gaze between a photo of Ginny on a broom in their last year at Hogwarts, to two of their wedding pictures, and ended on one of Ginny asleep in their large bed, her fire-bright hair spread around her. Astoria swallowed and met Harry’s eyes. “I know that my husband is only chasing you in an attempt to make me pay more attention to him.”

Shock like sweetness burst in Harry’s mouth. He sighed out. “All right.” _So this is over. I’ll owl Draco and tell him that we won’t be going on any more dates._ “So you’re going to talk to him and tell him—”

“Don’t presume to dictate matters between me and my husband, Auror Potter.”

Harry blinked. “All right. But then—you told me that for a reason. So you aren’t going to let him get to you? You’re going to tell him that you know?”

Astoria sneered at him a little. “That isn’t how the game is played.”

“I don’t think this is a fucking _game_ ,” Harry said, making Astoria’s eyes widen a touch. He thought it was more at the language he’d used than how intense he’d got. “Just tell me why the fuck you’re _here_.”

“I want you to break up with him.”

“And?”

“Your continuing participation is unnecessary.”

“So then you’re going to break up with Ginny, too?”

Astoria flicked a strand of her hair over her shoulder. Harry forcibly crushed down the comparisons that tried to occur to him about how beautiful her hair was compared to his tangled mop. “No. Everything will go back to how it was. I will date your lovely wife. You won’t date my husband. He can find someone else to chase.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “Fine. Then I’ll look around for someone else, too. Know anyone?”

“You will not date _anyone_ , Auror Potter. Not my husband or any other man or woman. It makes Ginny unhappy.”

Harry opened his mouth and said, “You know what? I’m not talking to you about this. I’ll go talk to Ginny. She either doesn’t know you’re here or she’s an incredible coward, if she’s sending other people to scold me.” He stood up and grabbed his cloak.

Astoria tried to snatch his wrist. Harry moved coolly out of the way. “It will make her _unhappy_ if you confront her!” Astoria hissed at him, her eyes wide.

“Yeah? And I suppose it doesn’t matter that _I’m_ as unhappy as fuck?” Harry shot back. Astoria said nothing. “Yeah, thought so,” Harry muttered, and marched out of his office and headed home.

*

Ginny wasn’t there.

Harry looked around the whole house, and looked for a note, and looked for any sign that she’d taken a lot of things with her and might not be intending to come back soon. There were no signs of that. Ginny simply wasn’t there.

And he couldn’t even send a Patronus to Hermione or Molly or anyone else and ask if they’d seen her, because Hermione and Ron didn’t want to be involved in his and Ginny’s sex lives and Molly and the rest of the family, except for Bill and Fleur, didn’t know about the arrangement.

Harry sat down on the stairs that Ginny had stood on last night, his head in his hands. The house was dark and silent around him, but he thought he could hear sounds anyway. Their marriage crumbling and falling apart, that was.

He didn’t know what to do.

Except to stew and ponder and wonder and be upset. This wasn’t _like_ Ginny, this running away. It wasn’t like her to be jealous, either. Harry might almost have wondered if she was under the influence of a potion or a charm, but he didn’t see how he could be sure until he got to talk to her, again.

 _Well, you've never stepped outside her bed, right? So this will be a new experience for her, watching you date someone else. You don't know how well-controlled her jealousy is until she watches you kiss and touch me._  
  
Harry grimaced. More and more, it looked as though Draco had been right. Ginny wasn’t as mature as she pretended, or as above jealousy. She’d been able to pretend only because Harry had never given her a reason to be jealous before.

_Do you want your marriage back? Then you’ll have to go back to the same arrangement that Astoria was talking about._

Harry took a deep breath. It was time to admit to himself that their marriage wouldn’t survive that way, either. He couldn’t go on sitting on his own jealousy for the sake of the crumbs of attention that Ginny sometimes threw him.

_If she wants to be married to Astoria, then she can be._

But _that_ pain made his heart feel as if it would crack. Harry stood up, flinging his cloak around his shoulders. He really, really needed company, and there was only one person who had been honest with him through this, even if his motivations weren’t the best.

*

“Harry?”

“Hi. Sorry. Do you mind if I come in?” Harry’s eyes darted past Draco into the Manor’s interior. “Are Ginny and Astoria here? Then I’ll leave.”

“No, not right now.” Draco gripped his elbow in a way that said Harry wouldn’t manage to Apparate without a tag-along, and drew him in. This time, they went into a sitting room decorated with glass and crystal, and Harry flung himself down into the chair in front of the fire. “What’s wrong?”

Harry swallowed. “Ginny is jealous enough that we’re probably going to get divorced, she keeps sending other people to talk to me about giving you up, and she wasn’t at the house when I tried to talk to her and see what she actually thinks.” The more he thought about it, the more the conversation with Ron left a sour taste in his mouth, too.

“Can you explain that to me in a little more detail, Harry?”

“Sure.” Harry stared into the fire and tried to make his voice as calm as he could. He told Draco what he could remember of his argument with Ginny, and the conversations with Ron and Astoria.

“ _Astoria_ came to talk to you?”

“No need to sound so surprised about that, Draco. You were the one who said that she was jealous of your lovers.”

“Yes, but—I would have expected her to say something about herself or pretend to be concerned about you. Not your wife.”

Harry looked up. “Is that something you miscalculated on, then? She’s more in love with Ginny than you thought and this trick isn’t going to work?”

Draco gave him a haughty glance that Harry thought he would have appreciated more if he wasn’t watching the rosy shine of the firelight along the line of Draco’s jaw. “I don’t _miscalculate_ , Harry. This is still going to work out the way I want.”

Harry sighed and leaned back in the chair. “I have no idea how. Either I do what Ginny and Astoria want, or I’m going to lose everything _I_ want.”

“Everything?”

Harry started at the touch of gentle fingertips on his arm. He glanced over. Draco was leaning towards him, not touching him anywhere except that hovering glide against his arm, but his whole expression glowed with promise.

“I told you that I didn’t enter into this because I wanted men,” Harry said. It should have been easy to look away from Draco’s grey eyes. It wasn’t.

“And I told you that I didn’t mind that,” Draco said. “But should your self-exploration end because your wife is acting like an idiot?”

“Don’t call her that.”

Draco leaned in to kiss him without answering. Harry sighed and felt some barrier inside him melting away, as if he had been holding his emotions behind a wall of ice. He sank his fingers into Draco’s short hair.

Draco moved slowly around the chair, never removing his hand from Harry’s arm. Then he sank on his knees on the thick carpet and looked up at Harry.

Harry found his breath coming short. His head was muddied and swimming with emotions again. _I shouldn’t say yes. It’s not going to solve anything. It’s only going to make this worse._

“Let me do this for you,” Draco whispered, running his fingers down the inside of Harry’s left thigh. “I hate seeing you so unhappy.”

And that made Harry spread his legs. It shouldn’t, but—everyone else was so concerned about Ginny and her unhappiness and what it was going to mean. He wanted someone who was focused on _him_ for once.

_Even if it’s wrong?_

_Ginny never seemed concerned about whether it was wrong,_ Harry argued back, and then all the voices in his head went silent as Draco slowly undid the laces of his robes.

The shine to his skin had intensified as he knelt there; his hair shone like a Gryffindor crest, and he bent down and rested his open mouth for a moment against Harry’s cloth-covered cock, just breathing. Harry shook, and had to clamp his hands down on the arms of the chair.

“I thought you might like this,” Draco said, his eyes so bright that it was as if they were made of metal.

He breathed some more, while Harry felt as though he was so wet he might have come already, and then slid Harry’s pants down his legs. When his mouth engulfed Harry, the world became beautifully simple.

There was nothing but the warmth around him, nothing but the wetness and the tongue that balanced and cradled his cock. Harry reached out and found one more thing, softness, the strands of hair sliding through his fingers with nothing more than a sigh.

Draco sucked and pulled, and the whirling emotions in Harry’s head died. Draco drew his head back long enough to lick exclusively at the head, and Harry felt fire incinerating his confusion. Draco breathed out, and the touch of heated air on his cock made Harry thrust forwards impatiently.

“Shhh,” Draco murmured, holding him in place with an easy touch, and then inhaled and exhaled again, directly on the head of Harry’s cock. In the end, that was what made Harry come, the long soaring fall of it, and the pleasure, and the relief that made him sag back limp in the chair.

He did manage to open his eyes when something touched his chin. He’d actually slid down so that his cheek was on the arm of the chair, and Draco stood in front of him, naked now himself, eyes bright with challenge.

Harry thought he wouldn’t be anywhere near as good, but even that confusion fled before the thought of what he wanted. He opened his mouth, and Draco guided his erection forwards and onto Harry’s tongue.

The taste was sharper than Harry had imagined it would be, and he let his teeth scrape twice before Draco’s winces made him use his lips to cover them. But this was also simple. He lay there with his tongue curling now and then, his cheeks hollowing now and then, and Draco did most of the work, thrusting in and out, his eyes shut.

When Harry thought Draco was probably ready, he did clamp down with his lips and suck as hard as he could, and Draco came with a shout. Harry coughed and spluttered, but that didn’t seem to matter, not when a simple Cleaning Charm would take care of it.

And the charm was already cast, it seemed, between one of his heavy blinks and another, and Draco reached down and tilted his head up with gentle fingers. He was smiling, the thick smile that Harry associated with his own pleasure.

“Yes,” Draco said. “I think I wore you out.”

Harry grunted agreement. He felt wonderful, and not just because of the languid satiation creeping up his muscles. Frankly, he felt good because he couldn’t _think_. He knew that he could close his eyes and sleep.

“Ah, ah, not in the chair,” Draco said, which made Harry think he might have said that last part aloud. Draco gently maneuvered Harry up to lean on his shoulder, and then his wand tapped Harry’s shoulder and cast another spell.

 _Maybe,_ Harry thought the next morning, when he woke up and found himself in a gigantic bed with grey sheets and Draco sleeping next to him, one possessive arm around his waist, _that sensation of floating wasn’t something I imagined._

He lay back in the bed, not inclined to rise yet, and familiarized himself with the smell of Draco’s hair, the soft way he breathed—and the brilliant smile that spread across his face when he opened his eyes and saw that Harry was still there.


	6. Lies

“Now it’s _your_ turn to break promises, is it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Harry told Ginny, and turned the page of the _Daily Prophet._ It seemed there were no rumors spreading yet about him and Draco, despite what Harry thought was a lack of discretion on both their parts. Then again, there weren’t any rumors about Ginny and Astoria, either, or Bill and Fleur and their lovers.

“You said that you would come meet me at the Burrow last night after dinner.”

Harry put down the paper and blinked at her several times before he winced. “Right. Sorry. I forgot. Draco and I were talking in his sitting room and…”

And it had been an ordinary conversation, really, partially about Quidditch and partially about ancient wizarding history and partially about the kinds of techniques that the Aurors used to investigate crimes. The sorts of things that Harry could talk to friends about. Only Draco had smiled at him, and it stole his breath, and he had completely lost track of time, only Flooing home when it was after eleven.

“So you’ve decided not to keep your promises in retaliation? How do you expect our marriage to survive?”

Harry focused completely on Ginny. She sat on the other side of the dining room table, hunched over, her hands pressing to her heart as if it were faltering. Her back was to the big window that looked out on a small scrap of garden, and the faint sun still made her hair blaze as if it was alive.

 _I love her._ The words were fainter in Harry’s head and roused fewer echoes than they should have.

He sighed. “I’m sorry, Ginny. It wasn’t in retaliation. It didn’t even occur to me that I was breaking a promise. I just lost track of time. Next time, I’ll keep an eye on my watch and tell Draco that I have to go earlier.”

“I don’t matter to you at all anymore.”

Harry hesitated a long moment, because he was trying to be honest. “I love you,” he said finally. “But I don’t think that our marriage is as strong as it was a few years ago.”

Ginny lifted her head, the sun now lighting up the tears on her face instead of her glorious hair. “I suppose it’s useless for me to tell you that our marriage could go back to being as strong as it was if you just did one thing.”

“What’s that?” Harry could feel his anger rising like hackles. He took a sip of his lukewarm tea to try and calm himself.

“Give up Malfoy. Let me just have you and Astoria, and we’ll be as happy as we were a few years ago—a few months ago! That was when all this trouble started, really, when Malfoy decided that he wanted to sleep with you.”

Harry stared at her hard, but Ginny’s eyes were wide and hopeful, and she had never been that good a liar. She did believe what she was saying.

Which was enough to shake his heart, perhaps break it. He forced the thick words out of his throat. “Ginny, maybe you were happy then, but I wasn’t. I was miserable. I loved you and I was drowning.”

Ginny shook her head. “Just because I love Astoria doesn’t mean I love you less, Harry. I’m sorry about those evenings I forgot and stayed too late, just like you’re sorry about the way you stayed too late last night. Let’s forget it and move on. You and me and Astoria.”

Harry felt the tug of hope. It felt like seduction. In some ways, it would be so much easier to go back to that time, as miserable as he had been. It would mean that he was the innocent one, the put-upon one. It would mean he hadn’t done anything wrong.

But he knew now he _had_ , both in breaking the promise to meet Ginny last night and because he had let things go so long without speaking up. “No,” he said. “I can’t have that, Ginny. We need to _talk_ about things. We need to decide if we’re going to close the marriage, or get divorced, or say that—”

Ginny swirled up from her chair, standing with her hands flat on the table as if she was about to launch herself over it. “There’s nothing to talk about it if you mention divorce,” she whispered. “Have you even though about how hard it would be, Harry?”

“It would be damn hard,” Harry whispered back. Last year he had pictured it as a black cliff looming in front of him, one that he would have had to jump over if he was going to go down it at all. “But I also think that it would be better than living a lie, or being dishonest with each other.”

“Not _that_. I mean, what would we tell Mum and Dad?”

Harry blinked, a little caught. “That…we were getting divorced? I mean, Gin. We couldn’t lie and pretend we were still married.”

“But what would we say when they asked why? You’re not going to tell them that this is something I need before I’m ready to, I hope.”

“No. But I would say that we stopped trusting each other, and that’s true.”

“I know my mother, Harry. She wouldn’t be satisfied with that! She would ask and ask and ask, and sooner or later you would tell her the truth to keep her from bothering you, no matter what it did to me.”

Harry stared at her. “Well,” he said finally. “The part that we don’t trust each other is _especially_ true.”

Ginny turned away from him and faced the wall. “Astoria never makes me cry like this,” she whispered. “She never makes me feel like I have to defend or justify myself. I love you, Harry, but why can’t you let me have what I _need_?”

“Because what you need is making me unhappy.” Harry heard his own words with a distant sense of unreality. He’d never thought he would actually speak them. “We need to talk. Fleur said that honesty is the best thing an arrangement like ours can have. We should—”

Ginny walked out of the room without looking at him.

Harry leaned back, rubbing his forehead, and stared at the _Daily Prophet_. At least the front-page story today wasn’t about him, he thought tiredly. But he didn’t know what to do right now. He couldn’t go back to Draco so soon, he didn’t know where Ginny had gone, and he didn’t have Quidditch or work to distract him today.

_So maybe you should think about what you want._

And Harry did that, for a long time.

*

“So she won’t talk to you about it? She just runs out of the room every time you try?” Draco frowned and sook his head. “That’s strange. Since she’s the one who wanted this kind of marriage in the first place, you’d think she’d do everything she could to preserve it.”

There was an undercurrent in Draco’s words that made Harry look at him sharply. “Come on, Draco. You have the same kind of problems in your marriage. You wouldn’t have to date me if you could just come right out and tell Astoria what you wanted.”

“That’s true,” Draco said, after a long pause, and turned back to look at the waves.

They were walking along a beach of white sand that had actual-to-Merlin palm trees on it, and a sunset that painted the sky in rich purple and gold happening over the waves. Harry didn’t know where they were, but he suspected it was a long way from Britain, given the several Apparition jumps they’d taken to get there. It was gorgeous, and warm, and he did want to enjoy it, but Draco had insisted on knowing what was bothering him.

Harry reached out now and gently squeezed Draco’s arm, drawing his attention back. “Hey,” Harry said softly. “I’ve never been anywhere like this. Can we save talking about Ginny and Astoria for later?”

Draco hesitated, then smiled. It made Harry’s insides melt along with his doubts, that smile. “Of course,” he said, and slipped an arm around Harry’s waist. “Come over here. I ordered food for us ahead of time.”

“And they’ll bring it to the beach?” Harry asked. He followed Draco’s gaze to a table set up a short distance from the high tide line, and snorted. “Well, I suppose they will if you have enough money.”

“Don’t be silly, Harry. You have as much money as I do. You could be enjoying this kind of luxury if you let yourself.”

“I know,” Harry admitted as the sand shifted softly beneath their feet and they walked closer and closer. The table was carved of what looked like one huge piece of white wood, and the benches curved around it like the edges of a shell. Even from this distance, Harry could smell food that made his mouth water. “But—I like the way you spoil me. Is that okay?’

Draco gave a deep shudder and turned to cup Harry’s chin, staring into his eyes. “More than,” he murmured.

Harry let himself relax into the kiss, drifting along until he was panting dizzily and their food was probably cold. Then Draco guided him to the bench as if he was a precious thing and helped him sit down.

“I hope you enjoy fresh coconut milk.” Draco handed him what was indeed a coconut with the top cut and hinged open, and a small groove carved into the interior along which the milk could run.

“I’ve never had it,” Harry admitted. He took a sip and smiled at the sensation. It was sort of like drinking clouds.

“You do like it.” Draco grinned at him and reached for one bowl that was still steaming. Some kind of heating preservation charm Harry hadn’t heard of, probably. “Good. This is goat stew. Wait until you try it.”

“It looks like it has bones in it,” said Harry, a little warily, although the smell that rose from the bowl continued to tempt him.

“The bones are good,” Draco said. “Of course, if you like, I could always feed you, and that way you don’t have to worry about bones. I’ll be sure to keep them off the spoon.”

Harry rolled his eyes at him—there were limits—and set about eating the stew for himself, as well as a delicate soup after that that appeared to be mostly apricots, slices of still-steaming lamb, shrimp covered in a kind of coconut sauce, and something so rich with chocolate he honestly wasn’t sure what it was. Draco handed him another coconut when he was done with the first one, and ate some of the dinner himself, but mostly, he sat there staring at Harry, drinking him in.

“What?” Harry asked as he finished his third coconut. He ducked his head a little, and Draco promptly stood and came around the table to rest his hand on Harry’s cheek.

“Nothing,” Draco breathed. “Just that you’re a wonder.”

“I’d hardly call that nothing.” But Harry let his protests go as he tilted his head back and Draco kissed him again, bearing him back gently into the table, not shaking or crushing the dishes. Harry sighed and looped his arms around Draco’s neck. The kiss filled his head with the kind of clouds he’d been drinking.

Draco pulled back at last with one more gentle brush of lips and murmured, “I suppose you’ll want to go home now.”

“Actually. The sand looks pretty soft.”

Harry reveled in the way Draco’s mouth fell open before he slid to his knees. And then Draco was the one panting, while Harry opened his robes and ran his hands gently up Draco’s legs.

He wore nothing under the robes but pants. Harry eased them down, turning his head to the side to rub his cheek against Draco’s skin.

It was strange, doing this fully conscious, without the wonderful languor of a blowjob Draco had given him to soften the taste. But Harry was coming to accept that he must be more bisexual than he’d thought, and if nothing else, there was pleasure for him in watching Draco throw back his head and gasp as Harry took him into his mouth and gently sucked.

Smugness, too.

It didn’t take long for Draco to come, swearing under his breath as he spilled into Harry’s mouth. Harry coughed. He thought he swallowed a little more this time, but not much more.

“Sorry,” he added, spitting once. “I don’t know how long it’ll take me to get used to the taste.”

Draco promptly bent down and kissed him full on the mouth, which Harry supposed was a good thing. He obviously didn’t mind tasting himself.

“That was wonderful,” he purred. “And now, lie back and let me return the favor.”

*

Harry shuddered a little as he let the door fall shut behind him. He’d come back late tonight, although luckily he hadn’t had anything set up with either Ginny or Draco. The paperwork was murder every time he had to cast certain countercurses in the course of his job. The Ministry authorities seemed to believe that the countercurses were as bad as the curses.

All he wanted was to fall right into bed. Maybe not even take off the Auror robes off first.

But no, he had to come home to an argument, raised voices and clattering shoes. Harry grimaced as he took off his cloak. Maybe he could sneak past the kitchen, where it sounded like Ginny and Astoria were arguing, and just go straight upstairs.

“Oh, so you _knew_ , did you?” Ginny was currently snapping, her voice sounding like frozen ice cracking on a river. “And you didn’t think to _tell_ me? Did you think that I’d have let Malfoy within a mile of him?”

Harry halted. He wanted to keep moving down the corridor, to refuse to be the kind of person who eavesdropped on conversations between his wife and her lover, but he couldn’t pick up his feet.

And the few things that could make Ginny sound like that...he felt nausea building up in his throat. Did Draco have some sort of sexual disease that he might pass on to Harry, who could pass it on to Ginny? Harry didn’t want to believe it, but he stood there and listened.

“Why should I have told you something that wouldn’t happen outside his wildest dreams?” From the sound of it, Astoria was pacing back and forth. She cursed softly, and Harry could imagine how she had banged her hip on the corner of the table. He and Ginny were always doing that. “When he first started talking about seducing Potter, I rolled my eyes at him. I never thought he’d succeed!”

Harry closed his eyes. _Seducing_?

“But then I heard you encouraged it, and—”

“I thought it made sense! It should be someone who had the same kind of arrangement, who could be discreet—”

“Ginny. Listen to me. _Your husband is straight_.”

“So, what? He’s not really been sleeping with Malfoy?”

“No, he has. I’m sure of that much, from the stupid grin that Draco is always walking around with. So it means that Draco is a lot better than I ever thought he was, and he _did_ manage to seduce him. You can’t blame me for this! It’d be like me telling you there was the faint chance a dragon would land on you one day when you’re playing Quidditch. You would have laughed at me and told me to shut up, and that would be the right thing to do, too.”

 _Did Draco seduce me? Am I straight_? Harry’s head was aching, and he doubted it was merely the pile of paperwork he’d had to complete tonight. Not anymore.

There was the sensation when Draco had touched him for the first time, and Harry had accused him of using a spell to make the touch feel good. Draco had indignantly denied that. Of course he had.

And Astoria wanted Harry and Draco to stop sleeping together. She wasn’t an unbiased source. Harry shouldn’t trust anything implied in an overheard conversation.

On the other hand, she didn’t know he was there, and she wouldn’t have a reason to lie.

Ginny was crying, and starting to argue something else through her tears. Harry whirled around and strode out the door, letting it fall shut behind him with a bang. He almost wanted them to hear it. He certainly didn’t care about hiding the fact that he’d been listening.

He’d had enough of dishonesty.

Harry actually ran back down the path to the garden gate, and, the minute he was beyond it, Apparated to Malfoy Manor.

*

“Harry! This is a pleasant surprise.”

Draco stopped talking when Harry walked straight through the door into the Manor and then turned around to face him. They were in the main entrance hall, with portraits peering at them. Harry wouldn’t have cared if they were on the moon. His head and heart were both pounding.

“Harry?” Draco asked cautiously.

_I can’t just accuse him of seducing me or using a spell or something. I don’t think that’s him._

“Look,” Harry said, thrusting a hand through his hair as he paced in a circle, “I overheard your wife talking to mine. Ginny was accusing Astoria of not telling her something. Something about me and you. And then Astoria started talking about how she was sure I was straight and you seduced me. Listen, Draco. I have to know. Did you do _anything_ when we started dating that wasn’t just ordinary—touching and things like that?”

Draco’s mouth had fallen open. “I swear, Harry. I swear I didn’t.”

And Harry did believe him. But he had seen, too, how Draco’s face had paled, and the instincts trained into him by fellow Aurors saw the way Draco’s hand twitched, as if he wanted his wand.

“So it’s not that,” Harry said, watching Draco closely. “But she knows something, something Ginny is upset about. Something that makes Ginny think she should have prevented us from dating after all. What is it, Draco?”

Draco closed his eyes. “If I asked you to trust me, and that it was nothing, would you listen?”

Harry’s own hand twitched. “But it’s not nothing.”

“Astoria is trying to make trouble between us. She’s getting as jealous as I hoped.” But Draco’s voice was hollow, and Harry took a step towards him.

“What? Were you lying about your reasons for wanting to date me? About your reasons for wanting her to pay more attention to you?”

Draco’s eyes opened again. “I swear, Harry, I was not. I did want her to be the one to call the arrangement off. I should never have agreed to it in the first place.”

Harry started to nod. Then he paused. “But you haven’t sounded as though you love her in the last few months.”

Draco took a step back.

Harry moved one forwards in response. “Draco.”

Draco said, “I told you the truth.”

“You said that you were in love with Astoria, and you wanted her to be the one to call the arrangement off.”

Draco’s chin tilted up. “I told you the truth,” he repeated. “It’s not my fault if you misunderstood me.”

“I want you to tell me _how_ I misunderstood you,” Harry said. He felt as though someone was setting a fire in his head. He’d come to accept how things were working out in the last few months, come to accept that maybe his marriage to Ginny would end and it wasn’t such a tragedy, come to accept that he was bisexual, come to enjoy his time with Draco. Now, he had to wonder if Draco wasn’t being honest with him, either. “How?”

“I said that I was in love,” Draco said, voice flat. “I never said that I was in love with my wife.”

Harry opened his mouth, then closed it. There was nothing to say to that, but his emotions swung around inside him—

“You can’t mean that you’re in love with me.”

“You did tell me to tell you the truth. So, yes. I am.”

“How?” Harry asked, as thoughts seemed to fall to the floor of his mind with vast crashes. “You didn’t even fucking _know_ me before the last few months! Only what the papers printed, and I don’t know, maybe Astoria told you things, but—”

“I knew you.” Draco was speaking in the same way, his chin tilted upwards, his chest rising and falling with steady breaths. “I saw how respectful you were to your wife, and I wanted to curse her for wasting that respect by sleeping with everyone else she fancied. I read about how you saved people, and I knew you didn’t do it just for the Galleons you got paid. I saw your smile in photographs, I heard you laughing when you were with your friends in public, I saw you unhappy but not reaching out to anyone else to bear the weight of it—”

“You heard me laughing when I was out with my friends? You saw how I treated Ginny? What?”

“I may have—followed you once or twice.” Under Harry’s incredulous stare, Draco admitted, “Fine, several times.”

“And otherwise,” Harry whispered, “you’re saying that you knew me from newspaper stories.” He licked numb lips. “I should have known this was moving too fast. I should have known this was too good to be true.”

“Harry, wait. I really didn’t use magic—”

“I’m not accusing you of that!” Harry snapped. Draco halted in the middle of reaching for him. “I’m accusing you of lying to me, when I thought you were the only honest person in this whole mess, and following me around when I didn’t know you were there, and thinking you know me—God, Draco, do you _know_ how much I despise those damn newspaper articles?”

“It wasn’t all them! And some of the things they say are true—”

Draco stopped. Harry suspected it was the expression on his face. He shook his head and turned away.

“I _am_ in love with you,” Draco said to his back. It sounded almost like a snarl. “You have no idea—”

“No, I don’t really know who you are,” Harry said. “And what hurts worst is that you were keeping secrets from me, and lying to me, and—I might still not have thought that you knew me well enough to love me if you’d told me the truth at the beginning, but at least it would have been the truth.”

_Fleur was right. Ginny and I weren’t honest enough with each other, and it turns out that I can’t be honest enough with my other “lover,” either. I’m really not meant for this._

Draco was saying something behind him, but Harry was already outside and beyond the anti-Apparition spells. With a twist on his heel and a sharp _crack_ , he was gone.


	7. Liberation

“Mr. Potter. What are you doing here?”

Harry twisted around and managed to give the Headmistress a wan smile. When he’d Apparated from Malfoy Manor, he’d chosen to come to Hogwarts. There were wards in place to prevent unauthorized visitors, but apparently the special access he’d received all those years ago as a returning “eighth-year” student was still active. He’d come straight to the Astronomy Tower and spent most of the night looking towards the Forest, thinking.

“Are you all right, Mr. Potter?” Minerva added, and Harry blinked. He must look as awful as he had when he Apparated.

Or maybe not _as_ awful, or Minerva might have tried to insist that he go to St. Mungo’s or get investigated by Madam Pomfrey. Now, Harry managed a wan smile and a shake of his head. “Not the best, but—I needed a quiet place to think. Is it all right if I stay here?’

“There are Astronomy classes tonight.”

“I promise I’ll be done by then, Headmistress. I just need this right now.”

“I told you before to call me Minerva. That still stands.” After a long moment when Minerva seemed to consider whether she _ought_ to do something else, she reached out and gave his shoulder a cautious pat. “If you need something, Harry, I will be in my office.”

Harry gave her a grateful smile, and after a moment, Minerva turned and left him alone. Harry went back to gazing out over the Forest.

His thoughts had tumbled so much during the night that he would have said he hadn’t made any progress in organizing them, but it seemed the brief conversation with Minerva had been good for him. He could indeed think now, and his breathing had steadied.

Yes. All right. He had been a fool in many ways. He hadn’t told Ginny he was unhappy soon enough. He had ignored the doubts he had about Malfoy and let the man influence him too much. He had run away from hard conversations that he needed to have.

But now...

Now he could _think_. And certain things that would have been literally unthinkable a week ago were now running through his head. They seemed no longer as terrifying nor as final as they had a week ago.

He had resisted the idea of divorce with all his might, even though he thought now that it might have been what Ginny was aiming for, because he had said that he loved her. That he couldn’t think of a life without her. That he would rather do things that went against every principle he had than lose her.

And now he knew that wasn’t true.

He had given Malfoy a huge, detailed list of things he loved about Ginny on their first “date.” But the last few months had eroded that list as if it had never been. How deep did his “love” actually go? How long had it been since he did something for Ginny just because he wanted to, just because he loved her, instead of enduring it with gritted teeth because she had asked it of him?

Their marriage had become a game of fairness, of Harry telling himself that he’d have the right to demand something of her if he just fulfilled this obligation or gave her this concession or kept that promise.

And that wasn’t a marriage at all. That wasn’t the way Bill and Fleur loved each other, or Ron and Hermione, or Molly and Arthur.

_Was it the way Draco loved you?_

Harry grimaced and shook his head. He still didn’t like thinking about that “love.” It seemed hollow and sad to him. If Draco had known Harry as well as he claimed, he would have known without asking that the surest way to lose Harry was to lie to him about something that important.

Draco was part of this mess, too, Draco and the weird revelations he’d brought about. Harry did have to acknowledge that he wasn’t straight as he’d thought he was.

He had to acknowledge it, but he didn’t have to _act_ on it. If he wanted to take a male lover, that was his business. But he shouldn’t have let himself be pushed into it.

He should have straight up confronted Ginny about the things that were making him uneasy.

He should have done lots of things. But in the end, the past was dead and he was dealing with its corpse. The thing that mattered a lot more was what he was going to do in the future.

Harry took a deep breath and clutched at one of the battlements for a moment as the wind whistled past him. He had already made his decision. It was only voicing it that was hard.

So, for the moment, he kept it in his head and only voiced it to himself.

_I have to leave._

He and Ginny had to divorce. Harry was willing to be the one to speak with a solicitor first, if he had to. He was willing to be the “bad” one and bear the brunt of the blame. There was no way to pretend that they could just heal this wound and go on.

If she didn’t want him to explain to her parents that she was polyamorous, then Harry wouldn’t. He would say, and he would repeat until even Molly got tired of asking, that things hadn’t worked out, and that they weren’t in love anymore.

It still hurt how true that last part was, but, well. If there was one thing Harry couldn’t do anything about, it was that amount of pain.

Harry couldn’t stay with Draco, either. He couldn’t trust him. Draco had lied to him about who he was in love with—and even if Harry thought he could forgive him for that, Draco had also, Harry was certain now, taken actions designed to break up Harry and Ginny’s marriage.

Harry’s hand tightened on the stone as he thought about the way that Draco had taken him to see Ginny and Astoria lying in bed together, and then told him about Ginny’s confession to Astoria that sex with Harry was a duty for her. Why do that? What did it have to do with Draco’s stated goal to get Astoria to pay more attention to him?

Nothing, that was what. Another thing that he should have questioned before this.

“You can’t change the past,” Harry whispered to himself. He looked up and studied the edge of the Forbidden Forest for a moment. A few thestrals were soaring above it, winging lazily in circles and now and then diving as though they wanted to see how close they could come to skimming the tops of the trees with their hooves.

No, it was only the future he could change.

He knew it was possible that Ron and Hermione would side with Ginny. Ron was her brother, after all. And neither of them had wanted to hear any details about the “arrangement,” at all. Harry shook his head. He should have pushed on that, too. He could have told them the truth without getting into the sexual details Ron was so afraid of.

He suspected, although he didn’t know for certain, that Ginny had been going and talking to them, after all. There was no other reason that she would have sent Ron to find Harry in his office a few nights ago.

That was another reason he hadn’t wanted to divorce Ginny, although he hadn’t voiced it to himself like that at the time. He hadn’t wanted to lose the Weasleys, and he assumed he probably would.

_If that happens..._

Harry took a deep breath. If it did, then he had really misjudged both his friends and the Weasleys. He didn’t think they were the kind of people who would hate him forever because he stopped being married to Ginny.

If they were, if he’d been mistaken about that, too, he’d deal with it.

He had kept running away, too, just like Ginny had. He’d thought that he needed a private place to think, and he’d come here. One thing the divorce would at least do was force him to find his own place, where there weren’t shared memories of Ginny waiting around every corner to ambush him, and actually think in some detail about what he wanted from life.

Maybe he would end up married to someone else someday. Maybe he would end up dating a man.

But for now...

For now, being alone sounded wonderful.

Harry smiled and stood up, feeling as fresh as the spring growth around him, despite the fact that he’d been awake all night.

Wonderful enough that he couldn’t wait to get started.

*

“What are these?”

Ginny’s voice was low and hostile. It had incredibly little effect on Harry, at least if he had thought about how it would affect him a week ago. He pushed the papers a little closer to Ginny across the kitchen table and said calmly, “Divorce papers. I’m going to fill them out. I’d like you to do it, too. I’d like this to be relatively amicable—”

“Do you know what this is going to _do_ to me? I told you! Mum is going to keep pushing and pushing for a reason—”

“And you can tell her it was my fault.” Harry raised his eyebrows a little when Ginny glared at him. “That’s what you wanted to tell her anyway, isn’t it?”

Ginny folded her arms. “I have no idea what you mean.”

Harry shook his head. “Gin, when you talk about reasons we shouldn’t getting divorced, you aren’t saying ‘Because I love you.’ You’re not even talking about how it’s going to affect me. You only talk about yourself. I don’t know why you _want_ to stay married to me, other than because it would keep your mum quiet. And that’s a pathetic reason.”

Ginny stared at the floor. “I could have been happy with someone who respected me,” she whispered.

“And I could have been the same. But in this case, we didn’t respect each other. And I don’t even know why it started, but I don’t know it’s going to end.” Harry nodded at the divorce papers.

Ginny lifted her chin. “I’m going to keep dating Astoria.”

“That’s fine. You can.”

“Are you going to keep dating Malfoy?”

“No. I found out he lied to me about something very important, and that’s not something I can tolerate.”

Ginny actually took a step backwards from him. “I thought—I thought you were going to divorce me because you wanted to be with him!”

“No—”

“Then why are you divorcing me?”

“Because,” Harry said, and he made it as gentle as he could, “I don’t want to be married to you anymore.”

Ginny’s face flushed a violent red. She leaned on the table now, hands braced on the top. “You should be so lucky as to find someone like me! Where else are you going to find someone who doesn’t care about your fame and who doesn’t care if you sleep with someone else?”

“But the thing is, I _do_ want someone who cares. I should never have agreed to this arrangement in the first place. I got jealous when you slept with other people—”

“That’s a petty, immature—”

“And that’s another reason this divorce is going to be good for both of us,” Harry cut her off. “You can find someone to be with who can accept you and love you the way you are, Ginny. I can find the same. Eventually. I don’t think I’ll date someone for at least a few years. I need time to get my head together and remember what I’m worth.”

Silence reigned in the kitchen. Ginny’s eyes were wide and Harry couldn’t tell anything she was feeling except surprise. Then she frowned and asked, “Will that person be a man?”

“I don’t know. I don’t have to answer that question, anyway.” Harry nodded at the divorce papers. “Will you be signing those?”

Ginny turned and walked out of the kitchen.

Harry shook his head. At this point, he couldn’t even say that _he_ was surprised. It would have been easier if she’d just signed them, but he could still get a divorce even if she didn’t want to. He picked up the papers and turned to the Floo. He had an appointment with his solicitor at eleven.

*

Harry looked around the small flat that he’d rented with a faint smile. For once, he’d taken advantage of his fame. He hadn’t bothered to hide his scar when he walked into the office of the witch who did most of the renting around Diagon Alley, and she had gabbled that of course she had a flat that was available, one she’d been planning to sell, but if Harry Potter wanted to rent it...

The walls were bare, blank white. The floor was made of scuffed wood and would need rugs to cover it up and make it warmer. The couch he’d brought with him from his house would need to be Transfigured into a bed, and he’d need sheets, a table, food to fill the open cabinets, all sorts of things.

But it was his. And he’d be alone here.

Harry turned and performed his first Transfiguration.

*

“I’m sorry to hear what’s been happening.” Bill had been standing on Harry’s front step when he got home from work that day. “Can I come in? We can talk about it?”

Harry gave Bill a measured look as he nodded and unlocked the door. “As long as you’re not trying to persuade me to stay married to Ginny. It wouldn’t be the best thing for either one of us.”

Bill sighed as Harry ushered him over to the small table, which he’d Transfigured from a boulder he’d found in a field last week. “I know. Mum’s upset and Ginny won’t tell her anything, which I think is the first time I’ve ever seen Ginny refuse to do that. But Fleur and I knew it probably had something to do with your arrangement not working.” He watched, brooding, as Harry got them both cups of tea. “You’re okay?”

Harry nodded and glanced over his shoulder. “I realized that I’d fallen out of love with her. Maybe a long time ago. I told her she could make me out to be the one in the wrong all she liked, because she doesn’t want to tell your mum about the arrangement.”

“And the—the arrangement?”

Harry shook his head as he handed Bill the cup of tea. “I need someone who’s focused on me. Maybe that’s selfish, maybe it’s less mature than what people like you and Fleur and Ginny have. I don’t know. But _I_ need just one partner.”

Bill nodded, quiet for a long moment before he began to speak. “You sound pretty decided about that. Why did you agree to the arrangement with Ginny in the first place?”

“Because she said that she needed to love more than one person. I thought she’d divorce me if I didn’t give her what she wanted.”

Bill whistled. “I can’t even tell you how long Fleur and I talked about it before we chose other partners. And that’s with both of us wanting to do it. We still had to set rules. You and Ginny didn’t set rules?”

“We did. We both broke them. I should have told her a long time ago that I didn’t want this, but—I was afraid. I didn’t want things to change. I think it’s the same way with her now, because I don’t think she loves me anymore.”

Bill shook his head. “For what it’s worth, I think it’s for the best that you’re divorcing her. And it’s not less mature to just need one person. It’s one way of doing things. Fleur and I have another way. There’re probably as many different ways of doing it as there are marriages.”

“Thanks, Bill. I know this is probably the last time I’ll see you for a while, so.” Harry swallowed a gulp of his tea. “Thanks for coming by.”

“Why would it be the last time?”

“Because Ginny’s going to need her family around her during the divorce, and I don’t want you to have to choose between us.”

Bill snorted. “If my sister thinks that seeing and talking to you sometimes is a betrayal, then she can think that. And we’ve never been as close as we were before I married Fleur. I made certain choices and Ginny didn’t like them.”

Harry paused, then nodded. He wanted to ask about those in more detail, but on the other hand, considering the way he had seen Ginny call Fleur Phlegm, he thought he might know. “Then I have something else to ask you.”

“Yes?” Bill focused on him.

“It—seems weird that I fell out of love with Ginny so fast after being in love with her for years. Can you check me for curses? Or other spells?”

Bill gave him a thoughtful look as he took his wand out. “I will, Harry, but I think you already know that it’s not _that_ strange. I think it’s more a matter of admitting the truth to yourself than suddenly falling out of love.”

Harry nodded and closed his eyes as Bill waved his wand gently in front of his face, then down from the top of his head, then in a circle around his waist. Bill stepped back and spoke a soft incantation under his breath, then said, “No. You’re clean.”

“Thanks.” Harry opened his eyes. “And you’re right. I wasn’t very good at discussing or admitting my feelings before this, and it cost me.”

Bill nodded back to him. “I think you need to concentrate on what’s going to come, not what might have happened if you’d spoken up earlier.”

Harry grinned. “Thanks.” Inwardly, he resolved to talk to Bill and Fleur more often. They could apparently read him better than he could read himself.

*

An owl had come from Draco two days ago. Harry had put the letter aside, shooed the bird out, and ignored it. He wanted to read it, but honestly, not right now.

After a shortened evening of work where the Head Auror had sent Harry home because he “looked peaky,” Harry made himself a huge cup of tea, sat down, and opened the letter.

_I know that you’re going to blame me, but I really didn’t lie to you. I told you that I was in love and I never expected to fall in love when I married my wife. You were the one who interpreted that to mean Astoria._

Harry rolled his eyes. If the rest of the letter was like this, he wouldn’t bother writing back. Draco knew exactly why Harry had been upset and he just wanted to justify himself.

_I do know exactly as much of you as I need to. Newspapers aren’t a bad way to get to know a person when you can back that up by looking into the Auror files and confirming that the newspapers told the truth._

Harry stared at the ceiling. So bribery of _other_ people was also involved.

_And I want you back._

The letter ended there, except for a scrawl that probably had the initials DM in it somewhere. Harry settled back and regarded it thoughtfully. Shorter than he thought, but also more self-justifying than he’d thought.

In the end, he decided he wouldn’t answer it tonight. He had to think about it and decide whether he wanted to invite that kind of chaos back into his life yet, or whether being wanted and loved (if he believed Draco) was worth giving up his quiet life at the moment.

*

“You haven’t come and seen us since you filed for divorce.”

Harry ushered Ron and Hermione into his flat and shut the door behind them. “You made no effort to see me, either,” he replied quietly. “That made me believe you were probably siding with Ginny.”

Hermione faced him. “Harry, how did our friendship fall this far apart?”

Harry answered at once, the way he wouldn’t have a few weeks ago when he was still too worried about losing their friendship to say anything. “You decided that you didn’t want to hear anything about my feelings when it came to a very important subject.”

“We just didn’t ask for _details_ ,” Ron interjected quickly.

Harry rolled his eyes. “But that meant I couldn’t talk about anything. It didn’t have to be about sex. It would have helped if I could have just discussed how it felt to be falling out of love with Ginny, or if I was, or whether I should date someone else, or how hurt I was feeling over Ginny neglecting me for Astoria.”

“I would still have to imagine my little sister having sex, though.”

Harry stared at Ron for a long moment in silence, until Ron looked at him. Then he said quietly, “Grow up, Ron.”

“We were trying to be as neutral as we could,” Hermione said, maybe because she could see Ron’s face turning red. “We didn’t want to take sides.”

Harry shrugged. “And maybe that would even have worked, if Ron didn’t do things like turn into Ginny’s errand boy because she asked him to.”

“She’s my _sister_ , mate!”

“So you’ll take her side in this and not mine?” Harry nodded. Honestly, he didn’t feel as much as he’d anticipated. Maybe it was because their friendship already had fallen to a pretty low point before this. “Then get out.”

“Wait, Harry.” Hermione’s eyes sparkled with tears as she held out a hand to him. “We don’t want you to be alone! We just don’t want to take sides.”

“What does that mean, Hermione? I can’t talk to you about it? You’re not going to talk to her about it? What?”

“I mean—Ginny’s staying at the Burrow, so we sort of have to talk to her about it when we see her, since she can’t tell Molly and Arthur the truth...”

“Then you’re taking sides.”

Hermione buried her face in her hands. “We just want to be neutral,” she whispered.

“You fucking can’t.” Harry wasn’t even as angry as he’d thought he would be. “Get out.”

“I—we want to still be your friends.” Hermione wiped tears from her face with the back of her arm. “Can we do that and not talk about you getting back together with Ginny or why you’re divorcing or any of it?”

“It depends. Are you talking to her about those things?”

“She—she _needs_ someone else to talk to about that, Harry. We all know the truth, but her parents don’t.”

Harry snorted. “I’ve had enough of hearing about how Ginny ‘needs’ things, Hermione. She justified lying to me and hurting me and breaking all the rules we set up because that was what she bloody _needed_. Meanwhile, I apparently needed nothing and was a stone statue. Go away,” he added when he saw Hermione’s mouth opening. “I hope we can be friends again someday, but it’ll probably have to wait until the divorce is done with and you can stop telling me how helpless and fragile and needy Ginny is.”

Hermione touched his arm gently and then walked out the door. Ron lingered behind for a second. “You know,” he said, while looking at the floor, “if you hated Ginny dating other people so much, you shouldn’t have agreed to that arrangement in the first place.”

“I know that.”

Ron looked up so fast that Harry winced to imagine how it probably hurt his neck. “Then—”

“And she should have told me if she needed things changed, not just assumed that I would go along with her spending every single evening with her girlfriend and she could chat about how lovely her girlfriend was in bed.”

“I hate you for making me imagine that,” Ron said, and covered his eyes with his arm.

Harry smiled slightly. They weren’t okay right now, but the tone and the words made him imagine that someday they would be. “Bye, Ron.”

*

“Ginny and Astoria broke up.”

Harry halted and sighed at the sight of Draco standing next to his door. “Does the fact that I didn’t answer your letter mean _nothing_ to you?”

“Hear me out,” Draco said, standing and holding out his hands as if he was going to clasp Harry’s. Harry deftly avoided that on his way to the door.

“Fine,” he agreed, sliding the key into the lock and stepping into the flat. “But then you’re going to leave.”

“Does that mean that you’ll never come back to me?”

“It’s so fucking early to think about that,” Harry said, and rolled his eyes, and sat down at the kitchen table with his gaze fixed on Draco. “You wanted me to hear you out. What’s your case?”

Draco looked startled, but then straightened up and gave Harry his best melting-eyed glance. Harry calmly returned it. Draco blinked, shuffled, cleared his throat, nodded, and began to speak.

“I know that you think I tricked you because I didn’t tell you the truth. But I didn’t tell you because I knew you wouldn’t accept it then. And not because you wouldn’t really believe me. You wouldn’t have believed me about _anyone_ loving you then. You didn’t think you were lovable.”

“None of those explains bribing people to see the files of my cases.”

“I never said—”

“The general public can’t waltz into the Ministry and ask for files like that,” Harry said flatly. “Give me some credit for general intelligence, Draco. And stop saying that because you lied by omission, you didn’t _lie_.”

Draco took a deep breath and nodded. “Okay. But I do love you. I noticed you because you seemed so unhappy, and I tried to figure out why. And then I found out about your arrangement with your wife because she started dating Astoria, and I thought there must be some secret reason Weasley wanted to leave you.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I started digging trying to find things I could use for gossip. I admit that. But—I honestly _do_ admire you and love you and want to spend the rest of my life with you, Harry. I was trying my best to make that happen. It’s unfortunate that you overheard that conversation between Ginny and Astoria before you fell in love with me back.”

“Uh-huh.”

Draco paused. “You don’t sound as if you believe me,” he whispered.

“That’s what happens when someone lies to me. I have a hard time believing them the next time.”

Draco took an unsteady breath. “Does that mean you hate me? That you—you’ll never come back to me?”

Harry stared at Draco in silence, and remembered the morning they’d woken up in bed together, the way Draco had touched him in the massage, the dates Draco had arranged, the hungry and admiring looks that came his way on a regular basis when he was with Draco. That was the main draw, he could admit to himself. Ginny hadn’t looked at him like that in years.

Hell, he still didn’t know if he’d ever want to date a man other than Draco. He was bisexual, a little, but could he date a man who wasn’t already in love with him?

And who hadn’t told him.

Harry sighed and finally answered, “I don’t know. Draco, I need time by myself to straighten my head out. And that’s pure honesty.”

“You’re perfectly sane. Don’t believe whatever that b—”

Harry stared at him, and Draco paused. “Fine. Don’t believe whoever implied that you weren’t sane.”

“That’s not it. I’m talking for myself, Draco. Now I look back and think that it was mental of me to spend so long with Ginny when I probably wasn’t even in love with her by then. Then I jumped straight into an affair with you. Then I broke it off. I put up with things until I didn’t, and I was unhappy until I decided to spend time by myself. Since then I’ve been _really_ happy. I need to understand why. I need to think. Not dive right back into a relationship that’s complicated enough already.” Harry paused. “Are you even divorcing Astoria?”

“It’s complicated—”

“ _Ah_.”

“No, I just mean, it’s really complicated! Legally and financially. We both signed a contract. Untangling that is going to take a lot of time. Then I’ll come back to you, Harry, I swear it.”

Harry shook his head a little. “I need time, Draco. Lots of it. Not a few weeks or months. It’s been so good to breathe and have my own flat that I think—I think I wanted that for a long time before I left Ginny. Not another lover.”

Draco closed his eyes. “So you’re giving up on what we could have together?”

“ _That_ is a manipulation tactic,” Harry sad sharply enough that Draco opened his eyes again. “I can’t blame you, because it’s the kind I would have fallen for. And I don’t think you even did it consciously. But that’s another reason we need to spend some time apart, Draco. It’s going to be good for _both_ of us, not just me.”

“I’m in love with you.”

“How much of that was the fact that I was forbidden fruit? How much of it is my looks and the things you think you know?”

Draco was silent for a moment, staring off into a corner. “I don’t think I’m ever going to stop loving you.”

“If that’s true, then it’ll wait a while.” Harry softened his voice, not so much because he didn’t think he was telling the truth as because Draco looked devastated. “If this is real, and I decide to come back to you, I’ll come back to you with a clear head, ready to love you with my whole being, not just because my marriage is unhappy or I’m punishing Ginny. Don’t you want that? For me to be yours?”

“I want it more than anything else,” Draco said, and Harry was sure he wasn’t lying. He just wished Draco had told him the truth from the _beginning_.

He nodded and said, “All right. I’ll keep that in mind. Please leave now.”

Draco walked towards the door, but then lingered there. “Do you love me, too, Harry?”

“I don’t know,” Harry said. That was the absolute truth, the only thing he felt qualified to say.

Draco lowered his head, and then nodded, and left quickly.

*

Harry stared at the door with the name outlined in gold in front of him, and let out a sigh. He had hoped this could be avoided, but now that he’d thought about it, he had to admit he needed someone like this. He raised his hand and knocked.

“Please come in, Mr. Potter.”

The voice was neither eager nor condescending, Harry noted as he opened the door and stepped into a large, book-lined office. At least that was a good sign.

The woman who sat behind the desk glanced up with a slight smile. She had a long braid of brown hair that was coiled up around the back of her neck, and dark eyes. Maybe it was childish of him, but Harry had deliberately searched for a Mind-Healer who didn’t have blonde or red hair.

“Sit down, Mr. Potter.” She gestured to the two-seat couch in front of her desk, and watched as he did. “You’d prefer the oaths of secrecy before we discuss any details, I assume?”

“Please.” Harry had also chosen this particular Mind-Healer, Aubade Jezen, because she used oaths to guarantee her clients’ privacy.

Jezen raised her wand without a pause and said, “I, Mind-Healer Aubade Jezen, swear to betray no knowledge of Harry Potter’s secrets intentionally or willingly, by word or writing or gesture, and to secure every note I take in his case behind the strongest legal wards.”

Harry sighed as he felt the oath settle, and saw the slight jerk of Jezen’s head that was typical of vows like that; he knew it felt like a collar tightening around someone’s throat. “And you’re an Occlumens?”

“I am, Mr. Potter. While not being a Legilimens.” Jezen laid her wand aside. “What end result are you looking for?”

“An outside perspective, as unbiased as possible, on the mess my marriage was,” Harry said bluntly. “And learning some more about myself and the way I react to things.”

Jezen tilted her head. “You didn’t say, advice.”

“If you have any, you can offer it. But I already know that I don’t want to stay married or have a relationship right now. I need someone to listen as I unpack my head.”

Jezen smiled a little. “That I can do, Mr. Potter. Where would you like to begin?”

*

 _I was thinking of you today_.

That was all Draco’s owl said. Harry hesitated. He did almost want to write back, but, well. He was still working through the fact that Draco had stalked him and lied to him when Harry had been absolutely sure that he was being absolutely honest.

In the end, Harry wrote two letters. One was the one that Draco’s owl carried back to him, which said, _I was thinking of you, too. But I need more time._

The other one spilled out emotions that Harry didn’t know if he would even have felt comfortable talking about to his Mind-Healer.

_Dear Draco,_

_I think this is the most confusing thing to come out of this mess. I know a little bit more now about how I fell in love with Ginny and fell out of it. And I know that I want to be alone now, and that I despise your wife (not that that was really ever my business to begin with). But I don’t know how I feel about you._

_You loved me—you didn’t tell me. You let me think you were in love with someone else, someone I would have started thinking was unfit for you pretty soon, the way you always thought Ginny was for me. You stalked me. You broke into the Ministry and bribed people. That’s unacceptable. You said that the newspaper articles are accurate sometimes, when they only are when they stumble on something by accident. You don’t know how_ tired _I am of people assuming they know me because they’ve seen some photographs and articles._

 _But you also gave me the best dates of my life. You made me feel loved and cherished and wonderful, like I finally_ mattered _to someone. I don’t think that you fell in love with me for my fame or because I rescued you from the Fiendfyre or because of my looks. That’s rare and precious. If you hadn’t lied, I think we would be together now._

_I need some distance because I need to get away from all the lies, the ones other people were telling me and the ones I was telling myself. I thought I was weak for needing love and comfort. That’s not true. Then I thought I was in control of everything, cool and mature and outside my former weakness. That wasn’t true, either._

_I can’t be with you because I can’t even be honest with_ myself, _right now. I promise that when I can, I’ll see you again. I don’t know what I’ll say then, whether it’s good-bye or hello. But for all I know, you won’t wait for me, and will want to move on. Which would also be right and reasonable._

_I realized recently that I’d never lived by myself. I lived with my relatives as a child, other Gryffindors at Hogwarts, Ron and Hermione on the run, the Weasleys during the summer before my NEWTS, Ron for a while during Auror training, Ginny when we got back together and when we were dating and married. I think I need this. I need to be by myself and learn who Harry Potter is when he’s honest._

_Thank you for helping lead me part of the way there. I don’t know yet if we can walk any further on this path together. I have to walk it alone for a while and see._

Harry folded up the letter when he was finished with it and glanced at the fire. Then he turned and sealed it in a drawer of his desk.

He didn’t know if he would ever send it. Not yet.

But at the moment, “not yet” were the most honest words he could speak to himself. About everything.

**The End.**


End file.
